MILLIONS of pounds set aside to fund vital drugs for Oxfordshire patients have not been spent.
The 200m Cancer Drugs Fund was introduced by the Government last year to give people who have been denied key drugs on the NHS a last chance to get treatment.
However, just over a year after it was announced, the Oxford Mail can reveal less than a fifth of the money for vital life-extending drugs for dying patients in our area has been spent.
Just 1.6m of 9.3m has been spent by the NHS South Central Strategic Health Authority, which covers Oxfordshire, although the majority of applications have been funded.
Prime Minister David Cameron announced the fund while visiting cancer campaigner Clive Stone, from Eynsham.
At the time Mr Stone, who set up the campaign group Justice for Kidney Patients to pressurise officials to approve funding for more anti-kidney cancer medicines, said it was the ‘right thing to do’.
But Mr Stone said: “This is an appalling state of affairs and it is high time that we insisted on full accountability from our many highly-paid NHS administrators.”
The fund was introduced as a way of combating the so-called ‘postcode lottery’ which sees some Primary Care Trusts turn down applications for life-extending drugs because of regional funding restrictions.
Applications are made by a consultant specialist, who recommends a drug on behalf of the patient.
But a recent survey by Macmillan Cancer Support showed some doctors are unaware the fund exists. Patients reported that they found out about the money after doing their own research on the internet.
Last night an NHS South Central spokesman said: “It is important to remember that alongside the fund, cancer drugs for thousands of local patients are funded through the usual commissioning channels.
“Since April 2011 until the end of November 2011, the South Central fund has received 493 applications of which 416 have been approved, 26 have been declined and the remaining have been withdrawn or are pending a decision.
“Applications are considered by a clinical panel.”
If the money is not used this financial year, the SHA said it ‘expects’ it will be carried forward, but there is no guarantee.
Mr Stone added: “What possible reason could there be for declining applications when the funds are readily available?
2011年12月29日星期四
2011年12月28日星期三
‘Losing my donor has saved my life’
LINDA Joel hit rock bottom earlier this year when her husband Gary left her and took with him the kidney needed to keep her alive.
But the Abingdon mother of five now says losing her donor has saved her life.
The diabetic, 58, realised without the chance of an organ donation she had to lose weight and survive.
And after a gastric bypass operation to shrink her stomach in April, she is now looking forward to a brighter new year after shedding more than a third of her body weight.
She said: “I hit rock bottom and I did get really ill. But there was no turning back for me, it was either lose the weight and get healthy or die within a year.”
Mrs Joel, of Tower Close, has only one working kidney and suffers from heart problems.
The Oxford Mail reported in December 2009 how Mr Joel had pledged to donate the vital organ to his wife, and we reported again in March that the couple had split.
The couple had been together for nine years and were married in Abingdon in 2006.
Mrs Joel had the bypass operation at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in April and has lost more than eight stone – going from 22 to about 13 stone.
She had to have daily injections for a month afterwards and could not eat solid food for 10 weeks.
She said: “It was really scary. The 10 weeks after I had the operation I just felt like digging a hole and disappearing.”
She is now following a strict diet and is banned from eating unhealthy food. Every day she will typically eat two spoonfuls of cereal for breakfast, a quarter of a tin of soup for lunch, and then a small plateful of food for dinner.
Mr Joel was in the same blood group as his wife, which meant the chance his kidney would be compatible was 70 per cent.
After the split he wrote her a note which read: “Linda, you and I have not been okay for a long time. I have felt the walls closing on me.
“I wish you and your family all the luck in the world but I’m not coming back.”
Last night, she said although she was heartbroken at the time, she was now glad to have broken up with Mr Joel, adding: “I haven’t seen or heard from him from that day.”
Mrs Joel used to be too embarrassed about her weight to exercise but now regularly goes walking and swimming.
The grandmother of 15 still needs a kidney and is on the NHS organ donor register.
But she said losing the weight had given her a lot more time before the situation became critical.
She added: “They told me if I had not lost the weight I would have been dead within six months.”
Mrs Joel, who is still single, said: “I am going to be living the rest of my life healthy and fit and I am going to be a fighter.
“Now I am looking for Mr Right.”
Her daughter Hayley Smith, 35, said the family had not expected her mum to live until Christmas.
She said: “Getting rid of him was the best thing that could have happened to her. You look at her now and she looks like a completely different person.
“We are all so proud of her.”
But the Abingdon mother of five now says losing her donor has saved her life.
The diabetic, 58, realised without the chance of an organ donation she had to lose weight and survive.
And after a gastric bypass operation to shrink her stomach in April, she is now looking forward to a brighter new year after shedding more than a third of her body weight.
She said: “I hit rock bottom and I did get really ill. But there was no turning back for me, it was either lose the weight and get healthy or die within a year.”
Mrs Joel, of Tower Close, has only one working kidney and suffers from heart problems.
The Oxford Mail reported in December 2009 how Mr Joel had pledged to donate the vital organ to his wife, and we reported again in March that the couple had split.
The couple had been together for nine years and were married in Abingdon in 2006.
Mrs Joel had the bypass operation at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in April and has lost more than eight stone – going from 22 to about 13 stone.
She had to have daily injections for a month afterwards and could not eat solid food for 10 weeks.
She said: “It was really scary. The 10 weeks after I had the operation I just felt like digging a hole and disappearing.”
She is now following a strict diet and is banned from eating unhealthy food. Every day she will typically eat two spoonfuls of cereal for breakfast, a quarter of a tin of soup for lunch, and then a small plateful of food for dinner.
Mr Joel was in the same blood group as his wife, which meant the chance his kidney would be compatible was 70 per cent.
After the split he wrote her a note which read: “Linda, you and I have not been okay for a long time. I have felt the walls closing on me.
“I wish you and your family all the luck in the world but I’m not coming back.”
Last night, she said although she was heartbroken at the time, she was now glad to have broken up with Mr Joel, adding: “I haven’t seen or heard from him from that day.”
Mrs Joel used to be too embarrassed about her weight to exercise but now regularly goes walking and swimming.
The grandmother of 15 still needs a kidney and is on the NHS organ donor register.
But she said losing the weight had given her a lot more time before the situation became critical.
She added: “They told me if I had not lost the weight I would have been dead within six months.”
Mrs Joel, who is still single, said: “I am going to be living the rest of my life healthy and fit and I am going to be a fighter.
“Now I am looking for Mr Right.”
Her daughter Hayley Smith, 35, said the family had not expected her mum to live until Christmas.
She said: “Getting rid of him was the best thing that could have happened to her. You look at her now and she looks like a completely different person.
“We are all so proud of her.”
2011年12月27日星期二
New York Methodist Upgrades Its Kidney Stone Treatment
New York Methodist Hospital is now using a new, improved version of a common technology to dissolve kidney stones.
Extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy is a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to treat patients with kidney stones. Physicians in NYM’s Division of Urology, headed by Ivan Grunberger, M.D., make up the first team in the United States to use a new lithotripsy device that offers improved results. Kidney stones are solid masses of tiny crystals that can form in the kidneys and cause bleeding, kidney damage or ongoing urinary tract infections.
It is estimated that more than one million patients are treated with ESWL annually in the United States. “The new generation of lithotripter is capable of generating shock waves with the same intensity from one firing to the next, something that older models could not do,” said Grunberger. “This makes the pulverization of the kidney stones more accurate, and also means that a higher number of patients will be stone-free after the first treatment.”
The new lithotripter can also monitor patient movements in real time with revolutionary infrared tracking. If the patient moves slightly during the procedure, the machine locates the kidney stone and completes treatment. The extended penetration depth of the shock waves also allows for treatment of patients who are obese.
“With the added conveniences of a handheld ultrasound probe to locate the stones, and the ability to generate consistent shock waves, we can treat lithotripsy patients with more precision and accuracy than ever before,” said Grunberger. “The new ESWL technology gives our urologists the ability to better target and monitor stones, ensuring better patient outcomes.”
New York Methodist Hospital, a voluntary, acute-care teaching facility located in Park Slope, houses 651 inpatient beds (including bassinets) and provides services to almost 38,000 inpatients each year. An additional 300,000 outpatient visits and services are logged annually.
Extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy is a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to treat patients with kidney stones. Physicians in NYM’s Division of Urology, headed by Ivan Grunberger, M.D., make up the first team in the United States to use a new lithotripsy device that offers improved results. Kidney stones are solid masses of tiny crystals that can form in the kidneys and cause bleeding, kidney damage or ongoing urinary tract infections.
It is estimated that more than one million patients are treated with ESWL annually in the United States. “The new generation of lithotripter is capable of generating shock waves with the same intensity from one firing to the next, something that older models could not do,” said Grunberger. “This makes the pulverization of the kidney stones more accurate, and also means that a higher number of patients will be stone-free after the first treatment.”
The new lithotripter can also monitor patient movements in real time with revolutionary infrared tracking. If the patient moves slightly during the procedure, the machine locates the kidney stone and completes treatment. The extended penetration depth of the shock waves also allows for treatment of patients who are obese.
“With the added conveniences of a handheld ultrasound probe to locate the stones, and the ability to generate consistent shock waves, we can treat lithotripsy patients with more precision and accuracy than ever before,” said Grunberger. “The new ESWL technology gives our urologists the ability to better target and monitor stones, ensuring better patient outcomes.”
New York Methodist Hospital, a voluntary, acute-care teaching facility located in Park Slope, houses 651 inpatient beds (including bassinets) and provides services to almost 38,000 inpatients each year. An additional 300,000 outpatient visits and services are logged annually.
2011年12月26日星期一
Richmond woman gives kidney to ailing former boss
This year, Susan Preston gave Bruce Dodds a Christmas gift that is changing his life.
Preston donated a kidney to Dodds.
"Her gift means a normal life again," Dodds said.
The living donor kidney transplant surgery took place Dec. 7 at IU Health University Hospital in Indianapolis. Dodds and Preston, both Richmond residents, are well on the mend.
For the first time in three years, food tastes good again to Dodds. His fluid intake is no longer restricted and he is free from dialysis.
"It's pretty amazing for someone not related to our family to make that gift," said Dodds' daughter, Lara Dodds.
Preston's husband, Roger Preston, and her daughters, Jessica McMorrow and Elise Chadwick, were not surprised by Preston's generosity.
"Susan is a make-a-difference kind of person," Roger Preston said.
"I would say my mom was unswerving in her decision (to donate) from Day One," McMorrow said.
Preston feels the Christmas season is the perfect time to celebrate Dodds' renewed life.
"The greatest gift given to us was Jesus," she said. "It almost seemed minuscule (in comparison) to give a kidney. It just seemed so right."
Preston and Dodds became acquainted eight years ago when he became her boss at Earlham College, where she is an administrative assistant. They each have three children and became grandparents at about the same time.
They worked together for five years before Dodds was blindsided by kidney failure from polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder causing cysts. It is the most common life-threatening genetic disease, one that often lies dormant for years.
Dodds had been treated for cancer not long before the kidney failure and believes that was his trigger.
His life changed immediately.
The kidneys control about 80 to 85 percent of the body's operating systems, Dodds said. He couldn't work and had to have dialysis three days a week.
"It (dialysis) takes over your life," Dodds said.
Most people, he said, understand that dialysis cleanses the blood because the kidneys can no longer handle that function. What they don't realize, he said, is that dialysis also removes the excess fluid from the body because without working kidneys, urination is not possible.
Each dialysis treatment, Dodds said, is as hard on the body as running a marathon and that body is operating at just 30 percent of its normal energy level.
Roger Preston, who works at Reid Hospital, said there is a misconception that a person can handle dialysis indefinitely.
"It's a Band-Aid on a gaping wound," he said.
"We had no idea it was such a physical hardship," Susan Preston said.
The past three years have been an emotional roller coaster for Dodds and his family. Initially, Dodds' wife, Marilyn, was deemed a match as his kidney donor. But when doctors discovered she had kidney stones, she became ineligible. Dodds said his wife literally cried for two weeks.
Other family members sought to be a match, but they were discovered to have the genetic predisposition to polycystic kidney disease. Dodds was listed as a transplant candidate on state and national databases. He had one near match.
"It's been three years of trying circumstances," Lara Dodds said. "(My father) has gotten through it with great courage and great strength."
Preston donated a kidney to Dodds.
"Her gift means a normal life again," Dodds said.
The living donor kidney transplant surgery took place Dec. 7 at IU Health University Hospital in Indianapolis. Dodds and Preston, both Richmond residents, are well on the mend.
For the first time in three years, food tastes good again to Dodds. His fluid intake is no longer restricted and he is free from dialysis.
"It's pretty amazing for someone not related to our family to make that gift," said Dodds' daughter, Lara Dodds.
Preston's husband, Roger Preston, and her daughters, Jessica McMorrow and Elise Chadwick, were not surprised by Preston's generosity.
"Susan is a make-a-difference kind of person," Roger Preston said.
"I would say my mom was unswerving in her decision (to donate) from Day One," McMorrow said.
Preston feels the Christmas season is the perfect time to celebrate Dodds' renewed life.
"The greatest gift given to us was Jesus," she said. "It almost seemed minuscule (in comparison) to give a kidney. It just seemed so right."
Preston and Dodds became acquainted eight years ago when he became her boss at Earlham College, where she is an administrative assistant. They each have three children and became grandparents at about the same time.
They worked together for five years before Dodds was blindsided by kidney failure from polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder causing cysts. It is the most common life-threatening genetic disease, one that often lies dormant for years.
Dodds had been treated for cancer not long before the kidney failure and believes that was his trigger.
His life changed immediately.
The kidneys control about 80 to 85 percent of the body's operating systems, Dodds said. He couldn't work and had to have dialysis three days a week.
"It (dialysis) takes over your life," Dodds said.
Most people, he said, understand that dialysis cleanses the blood because the kidneys can no longer handle that function. What they don't realize, he said, is that dialysis also removes the excess fluid from the body because without working kidneys, urination is not possible.
Each dialysis treatment, Dodds said, is as hard on the body as running a marathon and that body is operating at just 30 percent of its normal energy level.
Roger Preston, who works at Reid Hospital, said there is a misconception that a person can handle dialysis indefinitely.
"It's a Band-Aid on a gaping wound," he said.
"We had no idea it was such a physical hardship," Susan Preston said.
The past three years have been an emotional roller coaster for Dodds and his family. Initially, Dodds' wife, Marilyn, was deemed a match as his kidney donor. But when doctors discovered she had kidney stones, she became ineligible. Dodds said his wife literally cried for two weeks.
Other family members sought to be a match, but they were discovered to have the genetic predisposition to polycystic kidney disease. Dodds was listed as a transplant candidate on state and national databases. He had one near match.
"It's been three years of trying circumstances," Lara Dodds said. "(My father) has gotten through it with great courage and great strength."
2011年12月25日星期日
X Factor USA Final: Braggadocio And Budget Cuts
Oh God. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Two weeks after saying goodbye to Little Mix and their Cannonball (although I think she prefers answering to ‘Jesy’) here I am again, staring down the barrel of another four-hour finale. Only Simon’s in this one, in body if not in mind.
As usual with the X-Factor, there’s always one breakout star that everyone’s talking about. Unfortunately, this series it’s Steve Jones, and no-one’s being especially complementary. In fact, looking back at my notes from this show, it’s really a tragi-comic single-hander. Like something Alan Bennett would write if he liked talent shows. The first show opens with Steve, floundering around in his bow-tie, PUTTING the emphasis on all THE wrong WORDS. Making this particularly uncomfortable is the fact that we all know he’s been dropped quicker than Christina Aguilera’s salad fork.
We’re provided a momentary relief from his awfulness, as he introduces the judges. Over the course of this series, they’ve each been working on their own distinctive hand gesture to give to the audience when their name is called. Now we’re at the final, it’s become like a carefully coordinated routine – LA Reid does kissy finger and a royal wave, Nicole does prayer hands and a dramatic bow, Paula offers her blow-kissy double hands, followed by ‘rock-on’ fingers, and Simon goes from military salute to exaggerated wink. Watched in rapid succession, it’s like American Sign Language for ‘Why aren’t you watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta instead?’
In an attempt to salvage what’s left of his once-promising career, Steve has obviously been on a presentation skills training course. Three days in a Trusthouse Forte outside of Guildford, practicing open palms and finger-thumb gesturing. When he’s not gripping his microphone tightly with both hands, he uses this training to ask for Paula’s famed insight. She comments how proud she is that the acts are so separate and distinct. I would love to see conjoined twins in next year’s final, just to watch her flounder.
It’s fair to say that the music performances in tonight’s show are going to be nowhere near as interesting as big Steve’s attempts to hold onto his job. So let’s make cursory mention of Josh’s gruff duet with Alanis Morrissette. Flat, tuneless and ineffective, it perks up a little when Alanis takes to the stage. She’s trying her best to look interested, but I’m sure she’s thinking “I used to chew on Ryan Reynolds, and now I’m singing in a fake wood with Fozzie Bear.”
Despite all the bluster and braggadocio before the show started, the debut season of X-Factor USA has been less than epic. It’s almost as though the disappointing ratings have forced a few budgetary cutbacks. Need an example? Well, those god-awful bits where we cut to a sports centre full of screaming supporters in the contestants’ home towns don’t even have a host. I mean, how much would it have cost to dump Kelly Osborne in Ohio for a couple of hours? Instead, they’ve just stuck a microphone in the hands of Josh’s grandmother. I’m sure she’s a game old bird, but the world of broadcasting didn’t exactly miss out on a bright shining talent.
Chris is on next, once again using his drug abuse as a bargaining chip. If we don’t vote for him to win, he’ll be firing up the crystal meth before the last glitter cannon has blown. He’s mangling an Avril Lavigne song, so it’s only a matter of time before she joins him onstage to show him how to fuck it up like a pro. Neither of them is in tune, and they’re rattling through more keys than a Victorian jailer. I’m also getting the vibe that this week’s theme is ‘Canadian guest stars’. Wouldn’t it be great if Melanie got lumbered with Rita MacNeil, the woman with a hair-lip who sings about Nova Scotian miners?
Before we get to that, the judges try their best to avoid mentioning how bad Chris’ vocals were, and Steve’s on hand to point out “You just did a duet with Avril Lavigne.” Big help, fella. Meanwhile, Paula’s trying to make a point about relevance, but then goes on to say “That song Complicated is the antithesis of the foundation that you’re built upon.” Simon’s as confused as I am, so he offers up his own nugget of wisdom – “That could be a record.” And this from the man who gave Mr Blobby a recording career. Forget about Josh’s Grandma, now it’s time to hear from Chris’ next-door neighbour in Santa Cruz, California. Somewhere in Florida, Melanie Amaro’s dry-cleaner is getting very excited.
As usual with the X-Factor, there’s always one breakout star that everyone’s talking about. Unfortunately, this series it’s Steve Jones, and no-one’s being especially complementary. In fact, looking back at my notes from this show, it’s really a tragi-comic single-hander. Like something Alan Bennett would write if he liked talent shows. The first show opens with Steve, floundering around in his bow-tie, PUTTING the emphasis on all THE wrong WORDS. Making this particularly uncomfortable is the fact that we all know he’s been dropped quicker than Christina Aguilera’s salad fork.
We’re provided a momentary relief from his awfulness, as he introduces the judges. Over the course of this series, they’ve each been working on their own distinctive hand gesture to give to the audience when their name is called. Now we’re at the final, it’s become like a carefully coordinated routine – LA Reid does kissy finger and a royal wave, Nicole does prayer hands and a dramatic bow, Paula offers her blow-kissy double hands, followed by ‘rock-on’ fingers, and Simon goes from military salute to exaggerated wink. Watched in rapid succession, it’s like American Sign Language for ‘Why aren’t you watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta instead?’
In an attempt to salvage what’s left of his once-promising career, Steve has obviously been on a presentation skills training course. Three days in a Trusthouse Forte outside of Guildford, practicing open palms and finger-thumb gesturing. When he’s not gripping his microphone tightly with both hands, he uses this training to ask for Paula’s famed insight. She comments how proud she is that the acts are so separate and distinct. I would love to see conjoined twins in next year’s final, just to watch her flounder.
It’s fair to say that the music performances in tonight’s show are going to be nowhere near as interesting as big Steve’s attempts to hold onto his job. So let’s make cursory mention of Josh’s gruff duet with Alanis Morrissette. Flat, tuneless and ineffective, it perks up a little when Alanis takes to the stage. She’s trying her best to look interested, but I’m sure she’s thinking “I used to chew on Ryan Reynolds, and now I’m singing in a fake wood with Fozzie Bear.”
Despite all the bluster and braggadocio before the show started, the debut season of X-Factor USA has been less than epic. It’s almost as though the disappointing ratings have forced a few budgetary cutbacks. Need an example? Well, those god-awful bits where we cut to a sports centre full of screaming supporters in the contestants’ home towns don’t even have a host. I mean, how much would it have cost to dump Kelly Osborne in Ohio for a couple of hours? Instead, they’ve just stuck a microphone in the hands of Josh’s grandmother. I’m sure she’s a game old bird, but the world of broadcasting didn’t exactly miss out on a bright shining talent.
Chris is on next, once again using his drug abuse as a bargaining chip. If we don’t vote for him to win, he’ll be firing up the crystal meth before the last glitter cannon has blown. He’s mangling an Avril Lavigne song, so it’s only a matter of time before she joins him onstage to show him how to fuck it up like a pro. Neither of them is in tune, and they’re rattling through more keys than a Victorian jailer. I’m also getting the vibe that this week’s theme is ‘Canadian guest stars’. Wouldn’t it be great if Melanie got lumbered with Rita MacNeil, the woman with a hair-lip who sings about Nova Scotian miners?
Before we get to that, the judges try their best to avoid mentioning how bad Chris’ vocals were, and Steve’s on hand to point out “You just did a duet with Avril Lavigne.” Big help, fella. Meanwhile, Paula’s trying to make a point about relevance, but then goes on to say “That song Complicated is the antithesis of the foundation that you’re built upon.” Simon’s as confused as I am, so he offers up his own nugget of wisdom – “That could be a record.” And this from the man who gave Mr Blobby a recording career. Forget about Josh’s Grandma, now it’s time to hear from Chris’ next-door neighbour in Santa Cruz, California. Somewhere in Florida, Melanie Amaro’s dry-cleaner is getting very excited.
2011年12月22日星期四
Longtime divers Troy and Justin Dumais still like making a splash
A diving competition in the United States is bound to have several necessities: a springboard, a platform, some deep water and a Dumais -- in fact maybe two of them, or three. Otherwise, it seems, the meet is just a bunch of guys splashing around in the pool. Might as well be a triple Lindy and a cannonball.
On Monday, Olympians Troy Dumais, 31, and his older brother, Justin, 33, finished fourth and fifth on the three-meter springboard event at the USA Diving Winter National Championships in Nashville, qualifying for the Olympic trials at ages when most divers are done. (Younger brother Dwight Dumais, 25, is a Stanford senior majoring in human biology. Though not as accomplished in the sport as his brothers, he is still a five-time national qualifier and bronze medalist at nationals on the one-meter board in 2005.) In Nashville, Troy teamed with Kristian Ipsen, a Stanford freshman, to win the three-meter synchro title. Ipsen recalls asking Troy for his autograph when he was eight years old.
Ipsen and Dumais clinched the meet by scoring nine or higher on five of six dives. They received perfect marks of 10 for a back dive pike, a forward 3 somersault and a forward 2 somersault with a twist. Their partnership is all the more remarkable because Ipsen has been training at his university in Palo Alto Calif., and can only train a few days each month with Dumais, who trains at the University of Texas and works as a Life Advisor for other Longhorns sports teams. His resume for the role comes from a sport that requires ups, downs, twist and turns is vast.
Troy Dumais almost made the Olympic team as a 16-year-old in 1996. In '98, he won a silver medal at the world championships on the one-meter springboard, an event not contested at the Olympics. Two years later, Dumais had an unusually high degree of difficulty at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Federal Way, Wash., and that was for just getting to the pool.
At 2 o'clock one morning, 17 hours before the finals of the men's three-meter event, he was admitted to St. Francis Hospital, trying to pass the large kidney stone that was breaking up in his body. "I felt like my whole side was exploding," he said. To complicate matters, Dumais, one point off the lead after the semifinals, had told doctors not to administer the usual narcotic given to patients in his condition because it was on the IOC's banned list. Instead they hooked him up to an IV bag, injected him with non-steroidal Toradol and sent him on his way at 5 a.m. after he passed a large stone into his bladder. Twelve painful hours later he was back again, taking in a liter of IV fluid and trying to force himself to excrete the stone completely so he could dive without incident or pain. Instead he passed either a second stone, or a fragment of the original, into his bladder and arrived at the Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center 45 minutes before competition began. In the stands his parents Kathleen and Marc and 28 other supporters wearing light blue shirts saying Dumais Diving had no clue about Troy's illness. "I didn't want my mom to freak," Dumais said, "so only my brother Justin knew."
Justin Dumais, who was then 21 and would finish 13th in the springboard final, was one of four Dumais siblings who followed Troy into diving after his parents chose it as an outlet for Troy's hyperactivity. "Teachers would ask a question," Kathleen recalled, "and Troy would blurt out the answer without being called." One teacher suspected he had Attention-Deficit Disorder and suggested his parents keep him on Ritalin. Instead they kept him on diving boards.
Should he qualify for the squad at the Olympic Trials in Federal Way in June, Troy would be the first U.S. diver to compete in four Olympics. Still, he admits that there is a void without an Olympic medal to show for his toils. He placed fourth in synchro three-meter with David Pichler at the Sydney Games in 2000, missing out on bronze by less than two points. Even after a sixth-place finish in Beijing two summers ago, he sounded like a man who wasn't done with his dives. "What should I do, sit behind a desk and ask myself if I left it out there?" he said. "If I leave the sport, the sport I love, the sport I've been doing my whole life, I have to be ready to walk away saying I did everything I could, and I know I haven't done that yet."
So at 28, Troy started hitting the weights on the advice of his longtime coach Matt Scoggin. Even though his technique was on par with many of the top Chinese divers, Scoggin felt that a stronger Dumais with a touch more lean muscle could jump a tad higher and have that much more time and space to square himself for cleaner entries that leave a more dramatic impression for the judges. He added between 10 and 15 pounds of muscle thanks to a four-day-a-week program in the gym. He won silver medals in the three-meter springboard and synchronized three meter, diving with Ipsen, at the world championships in Rome in 2009, keeping the elusive Olympic medal within reach.
Justin, 33, is the eldest. He competed with Troy at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, finishing sixth in the synchro springboard event with Troy and won a bronze in synchro with Troy at the worlds in 2005. It was about that time, when doctors diagnosed him with Graves Disease, a thyroid ailment he beat in part by switching medications and keeping diet soda out of his fridge. He has since taken time away from diving for another high-flying vocation, flying F-16 jets for the South Carolina Air National Guard, before his tour of duty in Iraq. Justin had briefly quit the sport to move to Florida with his wife, Amy.
Though they have been each other's rocks throughout the sport, the Dumais boys actually had to be separated in college. Though he is the older diver, Justin had always fought to keep up with Troy. The boys began their collegiate careers at different universities -- Justin at USC and Troy at Texas -- but Justin soon transferred to join the Longhorns. Kenny Armstrong, their coach at Texas, decreed that Troy would compete in springboard events, while Justin jumped from the platform. That kept the two of them from competing against one another instead of for themselves.
On Monday, Olympians Troy Dumais, 31, and his older brother, Justin, 33, finished fourth and fifth on the three-meter springboard event at the USA Diving Winter National Championships in Nashville, qualifying for the Olympic trials at ages when most divers are done. (Younger brother Dwight Dumais, 25, is a Stanford senior majoring in human biology. Though not as accomplished in the sport as his brothers, he is still a five-time national qualifier and bronze medalist at nationals on the one-meter board in 2005.) In Nashville, Troy teamed with Kristian Ipsen, a Stanford freshman, to win the three-meter synchro title. Ipsen recalls asking Troy for his autograph when he was eight years old.
Ipsen and Dumais clinched the meet by scoring nine or higher on five of six dives. They received perfect marks of 10 for a back dive pike, a forward 3 somersault and a forward 2 somersault with a twist. Their partnership is all the more remarkable because Ipsen has been training at his university in Palo Alto Calif., and can only train a few days each month with Dumais, who trains at the University of Texas and works as a Life Advisor for other Longhorns sports teams. His resume for the role comes from a sport that requires ups, downs, twist and turns is vast.
Troy Dumais almost made the Olympic team as a 16-year-old in 1996. In '98, he won a silver medal at the world championships on the one-meter springboard, an event not contested at the Olympics. Two years later, Dumais had an unusually high degree of difficulty at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Federal Way, Wash., and that was for just getting to the pool.
At 2 o'clock one morning, 17 hours before the finals of the men's three-meter event, he was admitted to St. Francis Hospital, trying to pass the large kidney stone that was breaking up in his body. "I felt like my whole side was exploding," he said. To complicate matters, Dumais, one point off the lead after the semifinals, had told doctors not to administer the usual narcotic given to patients in his condition because it was on the IOC's banned list. Instead they hooked him up to an IV bag, injected him with non-steroidal Toradol and sent him on his way at 5 a.m. after he passed a large stone into his bladder. Twelve painful hours later he was back again, taking in a liter of IV fluid and trying to force himself to excrete the stone completely so he could dive without incident or pain. Instead he passed either a second stone, or a fragment of the original, into his bladder and arrived at the Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center 45 minutes before competition began. In the stands his parents Kathleen and Marc and 28 other supporters wearing light blue shirts saying Dumais Diving had no clue about Troy's illness. "I didn't want my mom to freak," Dumais said, "so only my brother Justin knew."
Justin Dumais, who was then 21 and would finish 13th in the springboard final, was one of four Dumais siblings who followed Troy into diving after his parents chose it as an outlet for Troy's hyperactivity. "Teachers would ask a question," Kathleen recalled, "and Troy would blurt out the answer without being called." One teacher suspected he had Attention-Deficit Disorder and suggested his parents keep him on Ritalin. Instead they kept him on diving boards.
Should he qualify for the squad at the Olympic Trials in Federal Way in June, Troy would be the first U.S. diver to compete in four Olympics. Still, he admits that there is a void without an Olympic medal to show for his toils. He placed fourth in synchro three-meter with David Pichler at the Sydney Games in 2000, missing out on bronze by less than two points. Even after a sixth-place finish in Beijing two summers ago, he sounded like a man who wasn't done with his dives. "What should I do, sit behind a desk and ask myself if I left it out there?" he said. "If I leave the sport, the sport I love, the sport I've been doing my whole life, I have to be ready to walk away saying I did everything I could, and I know I haven't done that yet."
So at 28, Troy started hitting the weights on the advice of his longtime coach Matt Scoggin. Even though his technique was on par with many of the top Chinese divers, Scoggin felt that a stronger Dumais with a touch more lean muscle could jump a tad higher and have that much more time and space to square himself for cleaner entries that leave a more dramatic impression for the judges. He added between 10 and 15 pounds of muscle thanks to a four-day-a-week program in the gym. He won silver medals in the three-meter springboard and synchronized three meter, diving with Ipsen, at the world championships in Rome in 2009, keeping the elusive Olympic medal within reach.
Justin, 33, is the eldest. He competed with Troy at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, finishing sixth in the synchro springboard event with Troy and won a bronze in synchro with Troy at the worlds in 2005. It was about that time, when doctors diagnosed him with Graves Disease, a thyroid ailment he beat in part by switching medications and keeping diet soda out of his fridge. He has since taken time away from diving for another high-flying vocation, flying F-16 jets for the South Carolina Air National Guard, before his tour of duty in Iraq. Justin had briefly quit the sport to move to Florida with his wife, Amy.
Though they have been each other's rocks throughout the sport, the Dumais boys actually had to be separated in college. Though he is the older diver, Justin had always fought to keep up with Troy. The boys began their collegiate careers at different universities -- Justin at USC and Troy at Texas -- but Justin soon transferred to join the Longhorns. Kenny Armstrong, their coach at Texas, decreed that Troy would compete in springboard events, while Justin jumped from the platform. That kept the two of them from competing against one another instead of for themselves.
2011年12月21日星期三
David Roberts sets his sights on Paralympic medals record
PARALYMPIC legend David Roberts has set his eyes on breaking Baroness Tanni-Grey Thompson’s record next year at London 2012.
The Pontypridd swimmer and Cardiff wheelchair athlete stand level on 11 gold Paralympic medals and Roberts has the chance to break the record next year.
“I have one more Games and I will make sure I am prepared to get that one gold I need and then we can all relax,” said Roberts.
“The record is important but it is not the driving force.
“I love swimming and it is all I can imagine doing.
“Inevitably when you equal someone like Tanni questions will be asked and it is a home Games so people will be more interested in it.
“If I am injury free and fit I can do it.
“There will be nothing better to finish your career becoming the most successful Paralympian ever.”
Roberts admits the home Games factor is a driving force behind him competing at one more Olympics.
“London was a massive driving force in me carrying on,” added Roberts.
“I always said I wanted to equal Tanni’s record because I wanted to be known as someone who is good at what they do.
“I managed to do that in Beijing and I got a bit of recognition and it felt like it was everything I ever dreamt of and I could finish happy.
“But it was not just the fact of beating Tanni.
“It was more the chance to walk out in front of a home crowd.
“If you think of all the great Olympians who have not had the chance to compete in a home Games, you realise the importance.
“I could not walk away from that because it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
But the 31-year-old has experienced a difficult couple of years in the build-up to London.
Roberts fractured his elbow in October 2009 after he was dragged into a tree while taking his beloved lurcher-collie for a walk.
The following March he spent a week in hospital having his kidney stones removed.
Roberts was then forced to pull out of the European Championships in April this year after breaking his elbow again in a freak accident at his training pool in Caerphilly. Going into a routine turn he collided with a fellow swimmer and instantly heard a crack in his elbow.
“It has been the toughest year of my career,” admitted Roberts, who hails from Llantwit Fadre.
“I was out of the water for eight months.
“It was such an innocuous injury as I collided arms with another swimmer.
“I just knew instantly it was bad because I heard a crack.
“I did not realise the full extent of the damage until I saw a surgeon who explained to me he had only seen this type of injury twice before and that is with the weightlifters.
“I had to have the surgery and I feel refreshed.
“A lot of the baggage has gone because not everyone is expecting a huge amount from me because I have been injured.
“It has also given me a lifeline and a chance to sneak in the back door which is how I like it. I have the time. I need to train smart and hard at my age and every session needs to count. I am training through Christmas and New Year before going away to South Africa in early January.
“The trials are in March and once you have qualified and get the letter then you can focus your mind and you will have five months to prepare.”
Roberts, who has cerebral palsy and competes in the S7 category swimmer, has seen his achievements recognised within and outside sporting circles.
Roberts addressed the Human Rights Council earlier this year to promote Britain’s proud tradition of supporting its Paralympian’s. And the swimmer was recognised by sporting legends at an awards ceremony in London when he was handed the esteemed Jaguar Academy of Sport Patrons Award for Sporting Legacy at the Savoy.
“It was very humbling and totally unexpected,” added Roberts.
“To be recognised by your peers is an amazing thing. The award was won by Dame Kelly Holmes last year so it is amazing.
“There were so many sporting stars and heroes of mine there and you don’t expect to see that many in one room.
“It was great to see people like Kriss Akabusi, Sir Ian Botham, Gareth Edwards, Dai Greene and Jamie Baulch.”
The Pontypridd swimmer and Cardiff wheelchair athlete stand level on 11 gold Paralympic medals and Roberts has the chance to break the record next year.
“I have one more Games and I will make sure I am prepared to get that one gold I need and then we can all relax,” said Roberts.
“The record is important but it is not the driving force.
“I love swimming and it is all I can imagine doing.
“Inevitably when you equal someone like Tanni questions will be asked and it is a home Games so people will be more interested in it.
“If I am injury free and fit I can do it.
“There will be nothing better to finish your career becoming the most successful Paralympian ever.”
Roberts admits the home Games factor is a driving force behind him competing at one more Olympics.
“London was a massive driving force in me carrying on,” added Roberts.
“I always said I wanted to equal Tanni’s record because I wanted to be known as someone who is good at what they do.
“I managed to do that in Beijing and I got a bit of recognition and it felt like it was everything I ever dreamt of and I could finish happy.
“But it was not just the fact of beating Tanni.
“It was more the chance to walk out in front of a home crowd.
“If you think of all the great Olympians who have not had the chance to compete in a home Games, you realise the importance.
“I could not walk away from that because it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
But the 31-year-old has experienced a difficult couple of years in the build-up to London.
Roberts fractured his elbow in October 2009 after he was dragged into a tree while taking his beloved lurcher-collie for a walk.
The following March he spent a week in hospital having his kidney stones removed.
Roberts was then forced to pull out of the European Championships in April this year after breaking his elbow again in a freak accident at his training pool in Caerphilly. Going into a routine turn he collided with a fellow swimmer and instantly heard a crack in his elbow.
“It has been the toughest year of my career,” admitted Roberts, who hails from Llantwit Fadre.
“I was out of the water for eight months.
“It was such an innocuous injury as I collided arms with another swimmer.
“I just knew instantly it was bad because I heard a crack.
“I did not realise the full extent of the damage until I saw a surgeon who explained to me he had only seen this type of injury twice before and that is with the weightlifters.
“I had to have the surgery and I feel refreshed.
“A lot of the baggage has gone because not everyone is expecting a huge amount from me because I have been injured.
“It has also given me a lifeline and a chance to sneak in the back door which is how I like it. I have the time. I need to train smart and hard at my age and every session needs to count. I am training through Christmas and New Year before going away to South Africa in early January.
“The trials are in March and once you have qualified and get the letter then you can focus your mind and you will have five months to prepare.”
Roberts, who has cerebral palsy and competes in the S7 category swimmer, has seen his achievements recognised within and outside sporting circles.
Roberts addressed the Human Rights Council earlier this year to promote Britain’s proud tradition of supporting its Paralympian’s. And the swimmer was recognised by sporting legends at an awards ceremony in London when he was handed the esteemed Jaguar Academy of Sport Patrons Award for Sporting Legacy at the Savoy.
“It was very humbling and totally unexpected,” added Roberts.
“To be recognised by your peers is an amazing thing. The award was won by Dame Kelly Holmes last year so it is amazing.
“There were so many sporting stars and heroes of mine there and you don’t expect to see that many in one room.
“It was great to see people like Kriss Akabusi, Sir Ian Botham, Gareth Edwards, Dai Greene and Jamie Baulch.”
2011年12月20日星期二
A widow’s quest for autopsy answers is a years-long struggle
“Your husband is dead,” the doctor told Linda Carswell.
This was not supposed to happen. Jerry Carswell had been admitted to Christus St. Catherine Hospital in Katy, Texas, with kidney stones. The previous night, he’d been walking around his room, talking about basketball and the upcoming presidential election with his son, Jordan. The plan was for the 61-year-old to be discharged that morning.
Instead, at about 5 a.m., a phlebotomist entered Jerry’s room to draw blood and found him lying across the bottom of his bed, not breathing, mottled and blue, without a pulse. Staffers performed CPR for 25 minutes to no avail. Carswell was pronounced dead at 5:30 a.m. Jan. 22, 2004.
Upon learning the news, Linda and Jordan Carswell rushed to Jerry’s bedside. Lying there, sheets and blankets folded halfway up his chest, he looked as if he could be dozing, except for the tubes running out of his mouth — remnants of the failed resuscitation effort. Linda shrieked and grabbed her husband’s cold hands, trying in vain to stir him.
The on-call doctor suggested that the Carswells authorize an autopsy, launching the family on a traumatic journey that still isn’t over.
Clinical autopsies, once commonplace in U.S. hospitals, have become an increasing rarity and are conducted in just 5 percent of hospital deaths. Grief-stricken families like the Carswells desperately want the answers that an autopsy can provide. But they often do not know their rights in dealing with either coroners or medical examiners, who investigate unnatural deaths, or health care providers, who delve into natural ones.
For the past year, ProPublica, PBS “Frontline” and NPR have examined flaws in the U.S. system of death investigation, finding that mistakes in America’s morgues have sometimes helped convict the innocent and allowed the guilty to go free.
The Carswells’ experience illustrates a different kind of injustice. Their case would play out in pathology labs, lawyers’ offices and courtrooms for more than seven years. It led to a rare $2 million fraud judgment against Christus St. Catherine, which was found by a jury to have deceived Linda Carswell about Jerry’s autopsy. It also led to state legislation designed to strengthen families’ entitlement to comprehensive, independent postmortem reviews.
It has not, however, led to closure or accountability. Thanks to an incomplete autopsy, Jerry Carswell’s cause of death remains unknown. He also has not been laid fully to rest. His heart, retained by the pathologist who conducted his postmortem examination, sits in a refrigerated cabinet in a hospital lab to this day.
None of the hospital employees involved in the Carswell case would answer questions from ProPublica. In a written statement, hospital officials said they provided good care to Carswell, and that his autopsy was sufficient.
Linda Carswell, an English teacher at one of Houston’s elite private schools, said her family’s macabre saga has left her lonely and disillusioned. She’s had to navigate complex establishments — medical and legal — while processing the shocking loss of her husband. Measured and proper, with black hair streaked by strands of white, she cannot seem to make peace with her loss.
Linda and Jerry, a history teacher and track coach, had been married for 33 years, raising two sons. She recalled how they would sit on the couch, her head on his chest, listening to the thump-thump of his heart. She is determined to get it back.
“It’s not just a piece of flesh,” Linda said. “Your heart stands for love. It stands for who a person is.”
Jerry Carswell had been a patient at Christus St. Catherine for two days before he died.
A scan performed on admission showed that, in addition to kidney stones, he had a cancerous tumor on one of his kidneys. It was in an early stage and not considered life-threatening, his hospital doctor said. At times, he was given medication to treat intense pain. He was administered the narcotic Demerol in the hours before his death, records show.
State law required that the hospital report Carswell’s death to the county medical examiner’s office because it was unexplained, unobserved and had occurred soon after he had received medical care.
But it’s unclear whether this step was taken. Hospital records show that the night administrator made a minute-long phone call to the medical examiner’s office at 6:35 a.m., but the office later provided an affidavit saying it had no record of the call.
It may not have mattered. Medical examiners rarely investigate deaths at health care facilities, experts say. Often, their resources are stretched by homicides, suicides and other suspicious deaths. They are seldom inclined to dig further if staffers at a medical facility ascribe a death to natural causes.
In court testimony, the night administrator at Christus St. Catherine said she had reported hundreds of hospital deaths to the Harris County medical examiner’s office and it had never taken a case.
As she sat with her husband’s body, Linda Carswell was unaware of the hospital’s reporting requirement, or that the medical examiner was supposed to assess his case. She and Jordan said no one at the hospital would answer questions about how Jerry had died. They knew Jerry had been administered narcotics during his stay and wondered whether the drugs had played a role in his death.
Linda said that when she asked Patty Elam, a daytime charge nurse, to call the medical examiner’s office to request an autopsy, Elam told her the office had turned down the case. Elam declined to comment for this story but said in court testimony that she did not speak with Carswell about the call to the medical examiner’s office. Linda did not press the matter further, a decision she came to regret.
This was not supposed to happen. Jerry Carswell had been admitted to Christus St. Catherine Hospital in Katy, Texas, with kidney stones. The previous night, he’d been walking around his room, talking about basketball and the upcoming presidential election with his son, Jordan. The plan was for the 61-year-old to be discharged that morning.
Instead, at about 5 a.m., a phlebotomist entered Jerry’s room to draw blood and found him lying across the bottom of his bed, not breathing, mottled and blue, without a pulse. Staffers performed CPR for 25 minutes to no avail. Carswell was pronounced dead at 5:30 a.m. Jan. 22, 2004.
Upon learning the news, Linda and Jordan Carswell rushed to Jerry’s bedside. Lying there, sheets and blankets folded halfway up his chest, he looked as if he could be dozing, except for the tubes running out of his mouth — remnants of the failed resuscitation effort. Linda shrieked and grabbed her husband’s cold hands, trying in vain to stir him.
The on-call doctor suggested that the Carswells authorize an autopsy, launching the family on a traumatic journey that still isn’t over.
Clinical autopsies, once commonplace in U.S. hospitals, have become an increasing rarity and are conducted in just 5 percent of hospital deaths. Grief-stricken families like the Carswells desperately want the answers that an autopsy can provide. But they often do not know their rights in dealing with either coroners or medical examiners, who investigate unnatural deaths, or health care providers, who delve into natural ones.
For the past year, ProPublica, PBS “Frontline” and NPR have examined flaws in the U.S. system of death investigation, finding that mistakes in America’s morgues have sometimes helped convict the innocent and allowed the guilty to go free.
The Carswells’ experience illustrates a different kind of injustice. Their case would play out in pathology labs, lawyers’ offices and courtrooms for more than seven years. It led to a rare $2 million fraud judgment against Christus St. Catherine, which was found by a jury to have deceived Linda Carswell about Jerry’s autopsy. It also led to state legislation designed to strengthen families’ entitlement to comprehensive, independent postmortem reviews.
It has not, however, led to closure or accountability. Thanks to an incomplete autopsy, Jerry Carswell’s cause of death remains unknown. He also has not been laid fully to rest. His heart, retained by the pathologist who conducted his postmortem examination, sits in a refrigerated cabinet in a hospital lab to this day.
None of the hospital employees involved in the Carswell case would answer questions from ProPublica. In a written statement, hospital officials said they provided good care to Carswell, and that his autopsy was sufficient.
Linda Carswell, an English teacher at one of Houston’s elite private schools, said her family’s macabre saga has left her lonely and disillusioned. She’s had to navigate complex establishments — medical and legal — while processing the shocking loss of her husband. Measured and proper, with black hair streaked by strands of white, she cannot seem to make peace with her loss.
Linda and Jerry, a history teacher and track coach, had been married for 33 years, raising two sons. She recalled how they would sit on the couch, her head on his chest, listening to the thump-thump of his heart. She is determined to get it back.
“It’s not just a piece of flesh,” Linda said. “Your heart stands for love. It stands for who a person is.”
Jerry Carswell had been a patient at Christus St. Catherine for two days before he died.
A scan performed on admission showed that, in addition to kidney stones, he had a cancerous tumor on one of his kidneys. It was in an early stage and not considered life-threatening, his hospital doctor said. At times, he was given medication to treat intense pain. He was administered the narcotic Demerol in the hours before his death, records show.
State law required that the hospital report Carswell’s death to the county medical examiner’s office because it was unexplained, unobserved and had occurred soon after he had received medical care.
But it’s unclear whether this step was taken. Hospital records show that the night administrator made a minute-long phone call to the medical examiner’s office at 6:35 a.m., but the office later provided an affidavit saying it had no record of the call.
It may not have mattered. Medical examiners rarely investigate deaths at health care facilities, experts say. Often, their resources are stretched by homicides, suicides and other suspicious deaths. They are seldom inclined to dig further if staffers at a medical facility ascribe a death to natural causes.
In court testimony, the night administrator at Christus St. Catherine said she had reported hundreds of hospital deaths to the Harris County medical examiner’s office and it had never taken a case.
As she sat with her husband’s body, Linda Carswell was unaware of the hospital’s reporting requirement, or that the medical examiner was supposed to assess his case. She and Jordan said no one at the hospital would answer questions about how Jerry had died. They knew Jerry had been administered narcotics during his stay and wondered whether the drugs had played a role in his death.
Linda said that when she asked Patty Elam, a daytime charge nurse, to call the medical examiner’s office to request an autopsy, Elam told her the office had turned down the case. Elam declined to comment for this story but said in court testimony that she did not speak with Carswell about the call to the medical examiner’s office. Linda did not press the matter further, a decision she came to regret.
2011年12月19日星期一
155kg man undergoes surgery for kidney stone
Dubai: A man weighing 155 kilograms successfully underwent an operation to remove a kidney stone shaped like deer horns which was causing great pain, a senior urologist said.
Egyptian Esmail A.H., 58, went to various hospitals around the country and was told to lose weight before an operation could be done as his weight was a risk factor.
"Shock wave lithotripsy [sound waves to break kidney stones] was also not possible because of the fat content in his body," said Dr Fariborz Bagheri, urologist at Dubai Hospital, who took up the challenge to operate on Esmail.
The doctor's team had to keep Esmail flat on his stomach for two hours to get to the 6-cm large stone which is known as the ‘stag horn', because of its horn-like ends. "From the point of anaesthetists, keeping him in the prone position was very difficult," Dr Bagheri told Gulf News.
Esmail had undergone an operation some years ago to remove another kidney stone. "Two decades ago doctors had to make a large cut at the back and then slice open the kidney to get the stone inside the kidney," said Dr Bagheri, showing a picture of a massive incision in the patient's back.
The medical team decided to get to the cause of Esmail's agony by using a technique involving a telescopic device inserted through a small puncture made in a patient's back. The recovery time is very quick with this procedure, Dr Bagheri said. "Kidney stones are very common in the warmer climates," said the urologist, adding that drinking two litres of water every day was the best way to avoid the problem.
"People work very hard in Dubai and don't drink water to avoid taking a break to go to the toilet," the doctor said.
He said the incidence of kidney stones was particularly high among taxi drivers in Dubai because they went hours without drinking water. Kidney stones occur due to dehydration, eating certain foods like meats and those which have high calcium content, or due to infection, said the urologist. Some stones develop inside the kidney and then lodge themselves in the urinary tract and if it obstructs the passage of urine it is very painful, Dr Bagheri said. But sometimes the crystals develop without obstructing the flow of urine, giving no clue about their presence, he added, recommending periodic tests.
Egyptian Esmail A.H., 58, went to various hospitals around the country and was told to lose weight before an operation could be done as his weight was a risk factor.
"Shock wave lithotripsy [sound waves to break kidney stones] was also not possible because of the fat content in his body," said Dr Fariborz Bagheri, urologist at Dubai Hospital, who took up the challenge to operate on Esmail.
The doctor's team had to keep Esmail flat on his stomach for two hours to get to the 6-cm large stone which is known as the ‘stag horn', because of its horn-like ends. "From the point of anaesthetists, keeping him in the prone position was very difficult," Dr Bagheri told Gulf News.
Esmail had undergone an operation some years ago to remove another kidney stone. "Two decades ago doctors had to make a large cut at the back and then slice open the kidney to get the stone inside the kidney," said Dr Bagheri, showing a picture of a massive incision in the patient's back.
The medical team decided to get to the cause of Esmail's agony by using a technique involving a telescopic device inserted through a small puncture made in a patient's back. The recovery time is very quick with this procedure, Dr Bagheri said. "Kidney stones are very common in the warmer climates," said the urologist, adding that drinking two litres of water every day was the best way to avoid the problem.
"People work very hard in Dubai and don't drink water to avoid taking a break to go to the toilet," the doctor said.
He said the incidence of kidney stones was particularly high among taxi drivers in Dubai because they went hours without drinking water. Kidney stones occur due to dehydration, eating certain foods like meats and those which have high calcium content, or due to infection, said the urologist. Some stones develop inside the kidney and then lodge themselves in the urinary tract and if it obstructs the passage of urine it is very painful, Dr Bagheri said. But sometimes the crystals develop without obstructing the flow of urine, giving no clue about their presence, he added, recommending periodic tests.
2011年12月18日星期日
Synthetic sales should be felony
The Rutherford County Commission responded to a mother's plea Thursday by passing a resolution urging for synthetic drug dealing to a be a felony.
"It has to become a felony offense," said Brooke Wyant, a Riverdale High School teacher who shared the story of her son's struggles with addiction to synthetic drugs after attending MTSU on a full-ride scholarship. "Life hasn't been the same. We're in financial ruin. He went through thousands of dollars in a manner of months."
All 20 present commissioners voted for the
resolution, which asks the Tennessee General Assembly to make it a felony for those making, distributing and selling synthetic drugs. Commissioner Steve Sandlin was absent because he's dealing with kidney stones.
Commissioner Robert Peay Jr. also called for the document be sent to all 95 counties in Tennessee to seek similar resolutions, and all of the commissioners agreed.
The resolution noted that the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office, Murfreesboro Police, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, State Attorney General's Office and the Rutherford County District Attorney's Office in September conducted a raid in which 36 convenience stores in the county were found to be selling synthetic marijuana and designer stimulants for up to $30 per package.
Wyant told the commission that her son Dylan Evans stole from his family so he could buy synthetic drugs from local convenience stores. He ended up having to be rushed to the hospital after overdosing on prescription pills when the mother tried to prevent him from going back out to buy more synthetic drugs. The family now faces a $22,000 debt for his 30 days of rehabilitation treatment.
Since then, the son has visited Blackman High to warn others about the dangers of synthetic drugs.
"He wants to help," the mother said.
Synthetic drugs can put a family in upheaval, Wyant added.
In addition to the mother speaking before the commission, Kathy Hines of the TN-ZERO task force on stopping synthetic drugs and Sheriff's Lt. Egon Grissom spoke.
"Our children are dying at astronomical rates," said Hines, a La Vergne resident who is retired from a career as a detective in Detroit. "One out of nine teens have used some form of synthetic drugs."
Grissom noted that local convenience stores are selling synthetic drugs under packages called bath salts or black fertilizer to simulate marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and Ecstasy.
"These drugs are much worse than any other drug you know because of the psychotic effects," Grissom said.
He noted that the National Poison Control Center reported that the first seven months of 2011 had 13 times as many cases of people harmed from synthetic drugs than in all of 2010.
To put a stop to it, synthetic drug dealers need to face punishments much stricter than a $200 misdemeanor fine, Grissom said.
"Put some bite into it," Grissom said.
In addition to the resolution on synthetic drugs, the commission approved spending $224,000 more to repair the brick exterior at the County Jail, which is structurally sound otherwise. The county will use $199,000 from development taxes that collect $1,500 per new home and $25,000 from the Sheriff's Drug Enforcement Administration fund.
"It has to become a felony offense," said Brooke Wyant, a Riverdale High School teacher who shared the story of her son's struggles with addiction to synthetic drugs after attending MTSU on a full-ride scholarship. "Life hasn't been the same. We're in financial ruin. He went through thousands of dollars in a manner of months."
All 20 present commissioners voted for the
resolution, which asks the Tennessee General Assembly to make it a felony for those making, distributing and selling synthetic drugs. Commissioner Steve Sandlin was absent because he's dealing with kidney stones.
Commissioner Robert Peay Jr. also called for the document be sent to all 95 counties in Tennessee to seek similar resolutions, and all of the commissioners agreed.
The resolution noted that the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office, Murfreesboro Police, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, State Attorney General's Office and the Rutherford County District Attorney's Office in September conducted a raid in which 36 convenience stores in the county were found to be selling synthetic marijuana and designer stimulants for up to $30 per package.
Wyant told the commission that her son Dylan Evans stole from his family so he could buy synthetic drugs from local convenience stores. He ended up having to be rushed to the hospital after overdosing on prescription pills when the mother tried to prevent him from going back out to buy more synthetic drugs. The family now faces a $22,000 debt for his 30 days of rehabilitation treatment.
Since then, the son has visited Blackman High to warn others about the dangers of synthetic drugs.
"He wants to help," the mother said.
Synthetic drugs can put a family in upheaval, Wyant added.
In addition to the mother speaking before the commission, Kathy Hines of the TN-ZERO task force on stopping synthetic drugs and Sheriff's Lt. Egon Grissom spoke.
"Our children are dying at astronomical rates," said Hines, a La Vergne resident who is retired from a career as a detective in Detroit. "One out of nine teens have used some form of synthetic drugs."
Grissom noted that local convenience stores are selling synthetic drugs under packages called bath salts or black fertilizer to simulate marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and Ecstasy.
"These drugs are much worse than any other drug you know because of the psychotic effects," Grissom said.
He noted that the National Poison Control Center reported that the first seven months of 2011 had 13 times as many cases of people harmed from synthetic drugs than in all of 2010.
To put a stop to it, synthetic drug dealers need to face punishments much stricter than a $200 misdemeanor fine, Grissom said.
"Put some bite into it," Grissom said.
In addition to the resolution on synthetic drugs, the commission approved spending $224,000 more to repair the brick exterior at the County Jail, which is structurally sound otherwise. The county will use $199,000 from development taxes that collect $1,500 per new home and $25,000 from the Sheriff's Drug Enforcement Administration fund.
2011年12月15日星期四
Recovered from a debilitating illness
That's also true in a metaphoric sense. Seven years ago, when he was 12, Duggan was stricken by a crippling illness that kept him from attending school for four years. Yet, that didn't stop him from completing his work.
Tonight, Duggan will be one the 59 students honored as Excellence in Education recipients. The award recognizes Kalamazoo County's top graduating seniors based on grade-point average and test scores.
"To go through what he's gone through and get all A's - I've been doing this for 11 years, and I've ever had anything like this before," said Susan Benton, Duggan's counselor at Norrix."John-Michael is amazing. He turns everything into a positive."
In the fall of 1999, when he was in seventh grade, Duggan discovered an odd rash on his leg.
It was diagnosed as ringworm, but puzzling ailments followed over the next year, including two bouts with pneumonia and a series of strange symptoms - dizziness, body aches, fatigue.
By the winter of his eighth-grade year, Duggan could no longer attend school. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic thought it was chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. Doctors at The Mayo Clinic suspected multiple sclerosis.
It wasn't until June 2002 that Kalamazoo doctors realized he had Lyme disease, a bacterial illness spread by deer ticks. Relatively rare in the Midwest and often misdiagnosed, the disease can cause chronic arthritis and nervous-system abnormalities if untreated.
Duggan's vision became so bad he couldn't read, and he was so dizzy and weak that he had to use a wheelchair. After the diagnosis, it took two years of treatment and therapy for him to recover.
Too ill to go to school for eighth through 11th grades, Duggan kept up with his schoolwork with the help of Doug Barrow, a Kalamazoo Public Schools' tutor.
"He was an absolute lifesaver," Duggan's mother, Karen Duggan, said of Barrow.
Duggan was allowed to honor two "significant educators" as part of the Excellence in Education award. He named Barrow and Benton, who will accompany him to tonight's reception.
Even with tutoring, the challenges were daunting. Because of his poor vision, Duggan had to listen to books on tape and dictate book reports. He had to do math problems in his head instead of on paper. Extreme fatigue limited how much work he could do at one time.
It wasn't until the fall of 2004 that Duggan was finally healthy enough to return to school for what was supposed to be his senior year.
"I was terrified to go back," he said. "I hadn't talked to most of my friends for four years, and they'd gone on with their lives. The last time I'd gone to school was (middle school), and now I was going to this big school with all these people. I didn't know how high school worked."
He had spent four years surrounded by adults rather than teenagers. In some ways, Duggan's illness had made him more mature, but in other ways he felt stuck in eighth grade.
Fortunately, he said, "the minute I walked in the school, those fears went way."
He became a disc jockey for the school radio station and worked in the school store and the library. His old study habits kicked back in, and Duggan has worked hard to maintain his straight-A average.
Instead of graduating with his class last year, he decided to stay at Norrix for a second year to better experience high school and take classes he missed during his illness.
This spring, he's been battling kidney stones, but no matter how much pain he's been in, he hasn't missed school. "I missed four years of school," he said, shrugging. "Now, as long as I can see and I can walk, I'm coming."
Next fall, he's going to Western Michigan University to major in psychology and Spanish, with hopes of becoming a psychologist. His Lyme disease symptoms have mostly abated, although doctors predict he'll have some aches and pains for the rest of his life.
Still, Duggan and his parents see his future as bright.
"The other day I realized, I can do whatever I want," he said. "There are unlimited possibilities."
Winning an Excellence in Education award has been icing on the cake, his parents said.
"My mom always says that everything happens for a reason, and for years I didn't see it," his mother said as she dabbed at tears. "But this is the reason."
Tonight, Duggan will be one the 59 students honored as Excellence in Education recipients. The award recognizes Kalamazoo County's top graduating seniors based on grade-point average and test scores.
"To go through what he's gone through and get all A's - I've been doing this for 11 years, and I've ever had anything like this before," said Susan Benton, Duggan's counselor at Norrix."John-Michael is amazing. He turns everything into a positive."
In the fall of 1999, when he was in seventh grade, Duggan discovered an odd rash on his leg.
It was diagnosed as ringworm, but puzzling ailments followed over the next year, including two bouts with pneumonia and a series of strange symptoms - dizziness, body aches, fatigue.
By the winter of his eighth-grade year, Duggan could no longer attend school. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic thought it was chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. Doctors at The Mayo Clinic suspected multiple sclerosis.
It wasn't until June 2002 that Kalamazoo doctors realized he had Lyme disease, a bacterial illness spread by deer ticks. Relatively rare in the Midwest and often misdiagnosed, the disease can cause chronic arthritis and nervous-system abnormalities if untreated.
Duggan's vision became so bad he couldn't read, and he was so dizzy and weak that he had to use a wheelchair. After the diagnosis, it took two years of treatment and therapy for him to recover.
Too ill to go to school for eighth through 11th grades, Duggan kept up with his schoolwork with the help of Doug Barrow, a Kalamazoo Public Schools' tutor.
"He was an absolute lifesaver," Duggan's mother, Karen Duggan, said of Barrow.
Duggan was allowed to honor two "significant educators" as part of the Excellence in Education award. He named Barrow and Benton, who will accompany him to tonight's reception.
Even with tutoring, the challenges were daunting. Because of his poor vision, Duggan had to listen to books on tape and dictate book reports. He had to do math problems in his head instead of on paper. Extreme fatigue limited how much work he could do at one time.
It wasn't until the fall of 2004 that Duggan was finally healthy enough to return to school for what was supposed to be his senior year.
"I was terrified to go back," he said. "I hadn't talked to most of my friends for four years, and they'd gone on with their lives. The last time I'd gone to school was (middle school), and now I was going to this big school with all these people. I didn't know how high school worked."
He had spent four years surrounded by adults rather than teenagers. In some ways, Duggan's illness had made him more mature, but in other ways he felt stuck in eighth grade.
Fortunately, he said, "the minute I walked in the school, those fears went way."
He became a disc jockey for the school radio station and worked in the school store and the library. His old study habits kicked back in, and Duggan has worked hard to maintain his straight-A average.
Instead of graduating with his class last year, he decided to stay at Norrix for a second year to better experience high school and take classes he missed during his illness.
This spring, he's been battling kidney stones, but no matter how much pain he's been in, he hasn't missed school. "I missed four years of school," he said, shrugging. "Now, as long as I can see and I can walk, I'm coming."
Next fall, he's going to Western Michigan University to major in psychology and Spanish, with hopes of becoming a psychologist. His Lyme disease symptoms have mostly abated, although doctors predict he'll have some aches and pains for the rest of his life.
Still, Duggan and his parents see his future as bright.
"The other day I realized, I can do whatever I want," he said. "There are unlimited possibilities."
Winning an Excellence in Education award has been icing on the cake, his parents said.
"My mom always says that everything happens for a reason, and for years I didn't see it," his mother said as she dabbed at tears. "But this is the reason."
2011年12月14日星期三
Acute care
Flu season hasn't officially arrived in Windsor, yet the city's emergency rooms are already bursting at the seams.
Last week Windsor Regional was at 105 per cent capacity. Hotel-Dieu Grace was at 107 per cent. That exceeds the crisis in October, when backlogs meant long waits in the ER and threatened elective surgeries.
The same thing is happening now, and for the same reason. Between the three sites, there are at least 150 patients in acute care beds who shouldn't be there. Frail or elderly, they should be living in long-term care facilities.
One of the reasons they're languishing in our hospitals is a shortage of alternate-care spaces in Windsor, and that problem won't be solved any time soon.
The 256-bed long-term-care facility announced by Schlegel Villages last Friday will take at least 20 months to open. That seems speedy after waiting all those years to get a shovel in the ground at the Hotel-Dieu Grace site, but it's still creating an accommodation crunch.
The other reason is an unfortunate change in provincial policy. Earlier this year Health Minister Deb Matthews struck down the "first bed available" provision that allowed hospitals to transfer ALC patients to any long-term care facility with a vacant room, freeing up emergency rooms for those needing immediate treatment.
While ALC patients could pick and rank their top five choices for long-term care, they were still obliged to take the first available opening under the old rules. It didn't mean they would be forced to stay there indefinitely; they could still move to their desired location when space became available.
In October, frustrated Windsor Regional CEO David Musyj called on the government to reinstate the first bed available policy. "We're turning into a quasi long-term care facility," he said, noting that 91 ALC patients were actually using desperately needed acute-care beds at the time. Because the Liberals had taken away a hospital's ability to charge those patients up to $600 a day, there was no incentive to leave.
It's a touchy subject, because elderly patients claim they're being discriminated against. Nothing could be further from the truth. These are patients who, by virtue of their age and health, meet the criteria for long-term care. With 28 long-term beds empty last week - 18 in Windsor and 10 in Tilbury - hospitals should have been given the right to transfer their ACL patients to them. They would still have had the option of moving into their preferred facility at a later date.
That didn't happen because, as Musyj said, the new policy means "they can stay until they get the one they want."
On Monday, hospital officials were warning of long ER wait times and begging people to stay away unless their conditions were serious. But how do you define that? If you're suffering chest pains or doubled over with kidney stones, the emergency room is exactly where you're supposed to be. If you've got an elective surgery that's been booked for months, you should be able to have it done as scheduled.
The health minister made a serious error in judgment when she put the needs of a small group ahead of the needs of the general population. She has rewritten the criteria in such a way that acute-care patients are being denied life-saving medical attention.
Sadly, this will only get worse unless the Liberals revisit their flawed approach. Our aging population means there will be more and more people needing ALC facilities. Until they're built, those patients must be treated in facilities designed for their needs, wherever they might be located.
Last week Windsor Regional was at 105 per cent capacity. Hotel-Dieu Grace was at 107 per cent. That exceeds the crisis in October, when backlogs meant long waits in the ER and threatened elective surgeries.
The same thing is happening now, and for the same reason. Between the three sites, there are at least 150 patients in acute care beds who shouldn't be there. Frail or elderly, they should be living in long-term care facilities.
One of the reasons they're languishing in our hospitals is a shortage of alternate-care spaces in Windsor, and that problem won't be solved any time soon.
The 256-bed long-term-care facility announced by Schlegel Villages last Friday will take at least 20 months to open. That seems speedy after waiting all those years to get a shovel in the ground at the Hotel-Dieu Grace site, but it's still creating an accommodation crunch.
The other reason is an unfortunate change in provincial policy. Earlier this year Health Minister Deb Matthews struck down the "first bed available" provision that allowed hospitals to transfer ALC patients to any long-term care facility with a vacant room, freeing up emergency rooms for those needing immediate treatment.
While ALC patients could pick and rank their top five choices for long-term care, they were still obliged to take the first available opening under the old rules. It didn't mean they would be forced to stay there indefinitely; they could still move to their desired location when space became available.
In October, frustrated Windsor Regional CEO David Musyj called on the government to reinstate the first bed available policy. "We're turning into a quasi long-term care facility," he said, noting that 91 ALC patients were actually using desperately needed acute-care beds at the time. Because the Liberals had taken away a hospital's ability to charge those patients up to $600 a day, there was no incentive to leave.
It's a touchy subject, because elderly patients claim they're being discriminated against. Nothing could be further from the truth. These are patients who, by virtue of their age and health, meet the criteria for long-term care. With 28 long-term beds empty last week - 18 in Windsor and 10 in Tilbury - hospitals should have been given the right to transfer their ACL patients to them. They would still have had the option of moving into their preferred facility at a later date.
That didn't happen because, as Musyj said, the new policy means "they can stay until they get the one they want."
On Monday, hospital officials were warning of long ER wait times and begging people to stay away unless their conditions were serious. But how do you define that? If you're suffering chest pains or doubled over with kidney stones, the emergency room is exactly where you're supposed to be. If you've got an elective surgery that's been booked for months, you should be able to have it done as scheduled.
The health minister made a serious error in judgment when she put the needs of a small group ahead of the needs of the general population. She has rewritten the criteria in such a way that acute-care patients are being denied life-saving medical attention.
Sadly, this will only get worse unless the Liberals revisit their flawed approach. Our aging population means there will be more and more people needing ALC facilities. Until they're built, those patients must be treated in facilities designed for their needs, wherever they might be located.
2011年12月13日星期二
A desert battle with salt
Drinking water has become an altogether less pleasurable experience for me of late. Gone are the days of gleefully gulping down glass after refreshing glass. Instead, I now find myself scrutinising the sides of bottles and paying over-inflated prices for fancy French and Norwegian brands in restaurants. I have a good friend to thank for this about-turn in my behaviour, for recently developing kidney stones, which the doctor said was due to my friend's excessive sodium intake.
So debilitating, so painful was the experience for my pal that I decided to do some research of my own to ensure I do not fall prey to the same symptoms. I almost wish I hadn't, for I discovered that when it comes to the formation of calcium stones, salt in all its guises is to blame and not merely the table variety we've all come to know and love.
Indeed, bottled water seemed to be a chief culprit, with some brands containing up to 16mg of sodium in just one litre. Compare that with high-end European brands of water with levels in the low single digits and you realise why the price is three times as high.
In my quest for healthy kidneys, that lifestyle change was the hardest and costliest one for me to make. The easiest, however, was cutting back my salt intake in food. I have always had a natural aversion to salt - be it in the form of cured and smoked foods or even a sprinkling on a portion of French fries. It is without doubt the worst taste in the world for me and the thought of one day mistaking salt granules for sugar brings me out in a cold sweat. This dislike has of course led to some embarrassing moments, namely at a recent dinner party where one bold guest asked me whether I had used any seasoning in the cooking process at all.
Admittedly, I am unlikely to come to a sticky end with sodium-induced high blood pressure or calcium deposits in my major organs. If anything, it's more probable I'll be deficient and need to up my intake of the natural mineral.
Either way, and despite my best efforts to avoid it, I feel sure that salt will somehow have the last laugh. For it stands to reason I must be consuming considerable amounts of it in everything from sauces and dressings to soups and cheeses.
Well, so be it. Life is too short to cut out the things you love and I certainly won't be researching the potential harmful side effects of excessive gorging on dark chocolate any time soon.
So debilitating, so painful was the experience for my pal that I decided to do some research of my own to ensure I do not fall prey to the same symptoms. I almost wish I hadn't, for I discovered that when it comes to the formation of calcium stones, salt in all its guises is to blame and not merely the table variety we've all come to know and love.
Indeed, bottled water seemed to be a chief culprit, with some brands containing up to 16mg of sodium in just one litre. Compare that with high-end European brands of water with levels in the low single digits and you realise why the price is three times as high.
In my quest for healthy kidneys, that lifestyle change was the hardest and costliest one for me to make. The easiest, however, was cutting back my salt intake in food. I have always had a natural aversion to salt - be it in the form of cured and smoked foods or even a sprinkling on a portion of French fries. It is without doubt the worst taste in the world for me and the thought of one day mistaking salt granules for sugar brings me out in a cold sweat. This dislike has of course led to some embarrassing moments, namely at a recent dinner party where one bold guest asked me whether I had used any seasoning in the cooking process at all.
Admittedly, I am unlikely to come to a sticky end with sodium-induced high blood pressure or calcium deposits in my major organs. If anything, it's more probable I'll be deficient and need to up my intake of the natural mineral.
Either way, and despite my best efforts to avoid it, I feel sure that salt will somehow have the last laugh. For it stands to reason I must be consuming considerable amounts of it in everything from sauces and dressings to soups and cheeses.
Well, so be it. Life is too short to cut out the things you love and I certainly won't be researching the potential harmful side effects of excessive gorging on dark chocolate any time soon.
2011年12月12日星期一
Mormeck could be dangerous for me
WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko is still set on facing 39-year-old former cruiserweight champion Jean Marc Mormeck next year on March 3rd in Germany despite Wladimir’s recent hospitalization for kidney stones.
The medical problem caused Wladimir to postpone his previously scheduled fight with Mormeck and push it to March.
Some boxing fans were hoping that Wladimir would use the opportunity to go in a different direction by picking a better opponent than Mormeck to fight, but Wladimir has made up his mind that he still plans on fighting Mormeck.
Wladimir said to eastsideboxing.com’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio program “Mormeck was so self-confident and he’s in the top 10 in the heavyweight division…I will not view Mormeck as such a bad fighter. He’s experienced. His style could become dangerous if I give him a chance, and I will not give a chance to any opponent.”
Mormeck does have excellent power, but excellent for a cruiserweight, not a heavyweight. He’s shown little of his once impressive power since moving up to the heavyweight division in three fights. Mormeck is going to have his hands full just trying to work his way close enough to land anything against Wladimir.
The only real question about this fight is whether Wladimir will suffer another injury to delay it. Wladimir twice suffered injuries that wiped out fights against Dereck Chisora before finally giving up on the fight. And then recently Wladimir’s kidney stone problem that postponed the Mormeck fight.
Mormeck draws a lot of attention from boxing fans from his home country France, and it would be interesting to find out how much money Mormeck can potentially bring in for television money over there for a Klitschko-Mormeck fight.
You would have to wonder whether Wladimir has negotiated to get that money thrown in the pot for this fight. If not, then I don’t see this as a fight that’s really worthy of Wladimir. He says the top contenders Robert Helenius and Tyson Fury aren’t ready to fight him now, but there has to be better contenders than Mormeck lying around and available for Wladimir to fight.
The medical problem caused Wladimir to postpone his previously scheduled fight with Mormeck and push it to March.
Some boxing fans were hoping that Wladimir would use the opportunity to go in a different direction by picking a better opponent than Mormeck to fight, but Wladimir has made up his mind that he still plans on fighting Mormeck.
Wladimir said to eastsideboxing.com’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio program “Mormeck was so self-confident and he’s in the top 10 in the heavyweight division…I will not view Mormeck as such a bad fighter. He’s experienced. His style could become dangerous if I give him a chance, and I will not give a chance to any opponent.”
Mormeck does have excellent power, but excellent for a cruiserweight, not a heavyweight. He’s shown little of his once impressive power since moving up to the heavyweight division in three fights. Mormeck is going to have his hands full just trying to work his way close enough to land anything against Wladimir.
The only real question about this fight is whether Wladimir will suffer another injury to delay it. Wladimir twice suffered injuries that wiped out fights against Dereck Chisora before finally giving up on the fight. And then recently Wladimir’s kidney stone problem that postponed the Mormeck fight.
Mormeck draws a lot of attention from boxing fans from his home country France, and it would be interesting to find out how much money Mormeck can potentially bring in for television money over there for a Klitschko-Mormeck fight.
You would have to wonder whether Wladimir has negotiated to get that money thrown in the pot for this fight. If not, then I don’t see this as a fight that’s really worthy of Wladimir. He says the top contenders Robert Helenius and Tyson Fury aren’t ready to fight him now, but there has to be better contenders than Mormeck lying around and available for Wladimir to fight.
2011年12月11日星期日
Tablets and powder no substitute for food
They are the lifeblood of elite athletes and body builders looking to push their bodies to extremes – but experts warn those looking for a shortcut to fitness with food supplements had better do their homework first.
Loading up on protein can put high stress on important organs, while supplements with caffeine or appetite suppressants can provoke other health issues, they warn.
Selasi Berdie, a human performance specialist at Body Science, said people should reduce the intake of dietary supplements if they're training only once or twice a week.
He said the body had to work harder to expel unnecessary supplements, and an overdose of protein, with unmatched training, would put high stress on the liver and urinary system.
“Supplements that contain really high levels of caffeine or even appetiser suppressant pills are a lot more dangerous than nutritional overdose. But worst case scenario, an overdose of protein can cause kidney stones.”
However if you're doing intense exercise, four-to-five times a week, such as, cycling, running and heavy weight lifting, then the body will most likely demand more protein, enzymes and minerals than a healthy diet can easily supply, said Rachel Horscroft, exercise physiologist and nutritionist.
Horscroft said too much fresh protein in the form of meat, chicken and fish, could cause your body to become extremely acidic, leading to body fatigue, depressive tendencies and a drastic decline in your wellbeing.
“The tablets and powders are there for repair, as they come to use only once you've exercised. Don't load up, especially when you're sedentary or only slightly active,” she said.
And it's not just a protein-overdose that causes the imbalance; even excessive exercise can hike the acid levels, hindering the body from getting optimum results.
To compensate, Horscroft recommended a shot of wheatgrass on an empty stomach to rebalance the pH level of the body and make it more alkaline, and improve performance, vitality and energy levels.
“The body treats wheatgrass like real food – since it's cultivated in its most nutritious stage – and unlike taking synthetic vitamins, wheatgrass absorbs naturally and easily,” she said.
Another supplement suitable for every lifestyle, blood type, fitness levels and diet, is a good quality Omega-3, said Dr Angus Pyke, spokesperson for Chiropractors' Association of Australia.
“When the ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats gets out of balance, the end result is an inflamed body. We are already consuming a lot of the former fat,” said Pyke.
Supplementing with Vitamin-D is also deemed to be a life changing choice, said Pyke because despite the abundance of sunshine in this country, research showed that the Vitamin D levels in Australian men were significantly low.
Loading up on protein can put high stress on important organs, while supplements with caffeine or appetite suppressants can provoke other health issues, they warn.
Selasi Berdie, a human performance specialist at Body Science, said people should reduce the intake of dietary supplements if they're training only once or twice a week.
He said the body had to work harder to expel unnecessary supplements, and an overdose of protein, with unmatched training, would put high stress on the liver and urinary system.
“Supplements that contain really high levels of caffeine or even appetiser suppressant pills are a lot more dangerous than nutritional overdose. But worst case scenario, an overdose of protein can cause kidney stones.”
However if you're doing intense exercise, four-to-five times a week, such as, cycling, running and heavy weight lifting, then the body will most likely demand more protein, enzymes and minerals than a healthy diet can easily supply, said Rachel Horscroft, exercise physiologist and nutritionist.
Horscroft said too much fresh protein in the form of meat, chicken and fish, could cause your body to become extremely acidic, leading to body fatigue, depressive tendencies and a drastic decline in your wellbeing.
“The tablets and powders are there for repair, as they come to use only once you've exercised. Don't load up, especially when you're sedentary or only slightly active,” she said.
And it's not just a protein-overdose that causes the imbalance; even excessive exercise can hike the acid levels, hindering the body from getting optimum results.
To compensate, Horscroft recommended a shot of wheatgrass on an empty stomach to rebalance the pH level of the body and make it more alkaline, and improve performance, vitality and energy levels.
“The body treats wheatgrass like real food – since it's cultivated in its most nutritious stage – and unlike taking synthetic vitamins, wheatgrass absorbs naturally and easily,” she said.
Another supplement suitable for every lifestyle, blood type, fitness levels and diet, is a good quality Omega-3, said Dr Angus Pyke, spokesperson for Chiropractors' Association of Australia.
“When the ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats gets out of balance, the end result is an inflamed body. We are already consuming a lot of the former fat,” said Pyke.
Supplementing with Vitamin-D is also deemed to be a life changing choice, said Pyke because despite the abundance of sunshine in this country, research showed that the Vitamin D levels in Australian men were significantly low.
2011年12月8日星期四
Boxing Braces for the Wrath of Khan
This Thursday Amir Khan—an ethnic Pakistani boxer from Bolton, England—will turn 25. The next evening in Washington, he'll defend his WBA and IBF light-welterweight world titles against Lamont Peterson in a marquee fight on HBO.
It's fair to assume that Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is 34, and Manny Pacquiao, who turns 33 this month, will be watching. Wladimir Klitschko, who together with his brother Vitali has dominated the heavyweight class for years, might have to tune in from bed. The 35-year-old had to withdraw from a fight this week after succumbing to a kidney stone. What they'll see is a fighter who is enormously popular—and whose name continues to pop up in conversations about the next great boxing supernova. The guiding star for Khan, who is 26-1 with 18 knockouts is, as he puts it, "to become the first fighter from the U.K. to be pound-for-pound best in the world."
To much hype, Khan turned pro at age 19 after winning a silver medal for Britain in the 2004 Olympics. He strung together 18 lopsided victories before colliding with a crushing left hook from Columbian Breidis Prescott in 2008 and suffering a first-round knockout.
Resiliency is a requirement in professional boxing. Khan peeled his psyche off the canvas of that knockout loss and began working with Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao's trainer. During their time together, Khan has already impressed his Hall of Fame trainer. "Amir is the best listener I've ever had," Roach said.
Khan's punishing jab comes in a flash and he can unleash a swarm of stinging blows in a nanosecond. However, after the Prescott debacle, Khan concentrated on improving his defense, increasing his lateral movement and getting angles that make him difficult to hit.
The wins followed. In 2009, Khan won a technical decision over Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera. A few months later, he scored a unanimous decision over Andriy Kotelnyk to become the WBA world light-welterweight king. Two more former champions, Paul Malignaggi and Zab Judah, have also become notches on Khan's title belt.
Roach believes that a 2010 war with the heavy-handed Marcos Maidana was the Rubicon in Khan's ring career. "In the 10th round Amir really got rocked," Roach said. "I was ready to stop the bout if he didn't respond well to my questions. But he went out and won the 11th round and the fight. I was so proud of him. That showed me he really has heart and that he can keep his head when he is hurt."
Khan has sparred a good deal with his stablemate Pacquiao. "They respect each other a lot," Roach said. "Amir emulates Manny in many ways. For example, when Amir gets hit hard he will step back, kind of shake his head and tap his gloves together as if to say, 'let's go.' That's just what Manny does. Both of them are exciting offensive fighters who will put themselves in harm's way to land a punch."
This may be Khan's last fight at the 140-pound weight limit. "I think my best weight is going to be at 147," he said. "I walk around now at 150 and at 147 I won't have to kill myself to get down to weight." Of course, 147 pounds is the El Dorado division of Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Before Khan can scale the heights of the best of the best, he has to pass the formidable test that the 27-year–old Peterson (29-1-1, 15 knockouts) will pose Saturday.
Peterson, whose younger brother Anthony is also a contender in the lightweight division, is strong and can box. A former National Golden Gloves champion, Peterson's only defeat was a decision loss to welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. Also on Peterson's ledger is a draw to Victor Ortiz. In that melee, Peterson went down twice but bravely fought back and managed to prevent Ortiz from getting the nod.
Still, powerful as he is, Peterson only boasts a 48% knockout ratio. He is not the volume puncher that Khan is. Peterson tends to stand in the pocket and does not move his head much.
Many suspect that the Khan's boxing braintrust believes Peterson is an easy mark—otherwise they would not be willing to take him on in his hometown of Washington. The consensus is that Khan has more experience in elite fights and is simply too quick. Once a homeless young boy, Peterson has overcome odds before. Khan's fast hands and dazzling combinations do not trouble him. In a conference call with the media, he said, "The thing about me. I'm a timing fighter… Timing beats speed all day. So, it's nothing to worry about his speed.
It's fair to assume that Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is 34, and Manny Pacquiao, who turns 33 this month, will be watching. Wladimir Klitschko, who together with his brother Vitali has dominated the heavyweight class for years, might have to tune in from bed. The 35-year-old had to withdraw from a fight this week after succumbing to a kidney stone. What they'll see is a fighter who is enormously popular—and whose name continues to pop up in conversations about the next great boxing supernova. The guiding star for Khan, who is 26-1 with 18 knockouts is, as he puts it, "to become the first fighter from the U.K. to be pound-for-pound best in the world."
To much hype, Khan turned pro at age 19 after winning a silver medal for Britain in the 2004 Olympics. He strung together 18 lopsided victories before colliding with a crushing left hook from Columbian Breidis Prescott in 2008 and suffering a first-round knockout.
Resiliency is a requirement in professional boxing. Khan peeled his psyche off the canvas of that knockout loss and began working with Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao's trainer. During their time together, Khan has already impressed his Hall of Fame trainer. "Amir is the best listener I've ever had," Roach said.
Khan's punishing jab comes in a flash and he can unleash a swarm of stinging blows in a nanosecond. However, after the Prescott debacle, Khan concentrated on improving his defense, increasing his lateral movement and getting angles that make him difficult to hit.
The wins followed. In 2009, Khan won a technical decision over Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera. A few months later, he scored a unanimous decision over Andriy Kotelnyk to become the WBA world light-welterweight king. Two more former champions, Paul Malignaggi and Zab Judah, have also become notches on Khan's title belt.
Roach believes that a 2010 war with the heavy-handed Marcos Maidana was the Rubicon in Khan's ring career. "In the 10th round Amir really got rocked," Roach said. "I was ready to stop the bout if he didn't respond well to my questions. But he went out and won the 11th round and the fight. I was so proud of him. That showed me he really has heart and that he can keep his head when he is hurt."
Khan has sparred a good deal with his stablemate Pacquiao. "They respect each other a lot," Roach said. "Amir emulates Manny in many ways. For example, when Amir gets hit hard he will step back, kind of shake his head and tap his gloves together as if to say, 'let's go.' That's just what Manny does. Both of them are exciting offensive fighters who will put themselves in harm's way to land a punch."
This may be Khan's last fight at the 140-pound weight limit. "I think my best weight is going to be at 147," he said. "I walk around now at 150 and at 147 I won't have to kill myself to get down to weight." Of course, 147 pounds is the El Dorado division of Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Before Khan can scale the heights of the best of the best, he has to pass the formidable test that the 27-year–old Peterson (29-1-1, 15 knockouts) will pose Saturday.
Peterson, whose younger brother Anthony is also a contender in the lightweight division, is strong and can box. A former National Golden Gloves champion, Peterson's only defeat was a decision loss to welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. Also on Peterson's ledger is a draw to Victor Ortiz. In that melee, Peterson went down twice but bravely fought back and managed to prevent Ortiz from getting the nod.
Still, powerful as he is, Peterson only boasts a 48% knockout ratio. He is not the volume puncher that Khan is. Peterson tends to stand in the pocket and does not move his head much.
Many suspect that the Khan's boxing braintrust believes Peterson is an easy mark—otherwise they would not be willing to take him on in his hometown of Washington. The consensus is that Khan has more experience in elite fights and is simply too quick. Once a homeless young boy, Peterson has overcome odds before. Khan's fast hands and dazzling combinations do not trouble him. In a conference call with the media, he said, "The thing about me. I'm a timing fighter… Timing beats speed all day. So, it's nothing to worry about his speed.
2011年12月7日星期三
While Arroyo gets special treatment, sick political prisoners barely survive
Relatives and supporters of political prisoners decried what they called “special treatment” accorded to former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as they demanded anew the release of political prisoners in the country, especially the sick and the elderly.
According to Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda), there are 360 political prisoners in the country, including the 78 who were arrested under the Aquino administration. Eleven of them are elderly, while there are 43 who are sick. The group said these political prisoners should be released on humanitarian grounds.
“The political prisoners who have been languishing in jails for years don’t have money to buy for their medicines. And yet, the Aquino government will use people’s money for a human rights violator like Arroyo,” Fr. Dionito Cabillas of the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR), said.
Arroyo, now representative of Pampanga’s second district, has been under hospital arrest for charges of electoral sabotage. The local court recently issued a ruling ordering her transfer to the government-run Veterans Memorial Medical Center. Malacanang expressed willingness to shoulder the costs of Arroyo’s hospitalization.
In the same vein, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casio said, “It is ironic that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the one responsible for so many human rights violations, is being given special treatment and even pampered by the Aquino administration while her victims have to go on a hunger strike just to air their demands that should and can readily be granted by the authorities.”
Since Dec. 3, political prisoners in various detention facilities have launched hunger strike and other forms of protest.
“Arroyo should be nowhere but in jail,” said Angie Ipong, Selda secretary general.
“This [special treatment to Arroyo] is unacceptable for the 360 political prisoners who are charged with trumped up charges and imprisoned because of political beliefs, who are now languishing in jails in dire conditions,” Ipong said.
“She has no life-threatening illness, but is very comfortable in the hospital. Political prisoners, on the other hand, do not receive proper medical treatment for their grave illnesses,” Ipong said.
The group cited the case of Crisanto Tomarse Fat who died of heart ailment while in jail at the Negros Provincial Jail on Sept. 20. Fat, a peasant leader in Moises Padilla town in Negros Occidental, was falsely charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Rolando Paamogan, 47, arrested in January 2002, is suffering from diabetes, toxic goiter and congestive heart disease. Paamogan, a leader of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Ponpunan, Baybay, Leyte, is now detained at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. He has been confined at the NBP hospital, where facilities and attending medical personnel are scarce. On several occasions, he had been rushed to the clinic for shortness of breath and convulsive seizure. “He, who is not guilty of the trumped-up charges the government filed against him, has no money to buy for his medicines,” Cabillas said.
Another political prisoner detained at the NBP, Rogelio Natividad, 61, has been in jail for the last 20 years. “Compounding his long years of imprisonment are the inhumane conditions in jail where there is meager food ration and poor hygiene which has resulted in his kidney infection, ulcer and hypertension. He has been found to have kidney stones, which is currently causing him pain,” Selda said.
Bernardo Andrade, 61, a fisherman from Old Sagay, Sagay City, Negros Occidental, and who has been detained for ten years already, has diabetes, asthma and hypertension. Since his arrest in 2001, his family had never visited him for lack of financial and material support.
Cresenciano Inocerta, 64, has contracted tuberculosis while inside the jail in NBP. He underwent treatment for six months. He has been considered healed of tuberculosis but he continues to suffer from asthma, arthritis and constant cough. Like Andrade, Inocerta has never been visited by his family from Valencia, Negros Oriental due to lack of finances.
Manolito Matricio, 60, from Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental, has been suffering from arthritis, diabetes and hypertension. He is one of the “Mamburao 6” who were convicted of killing the two sons of a local land lord in Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro.
Ernesto Dumlao, detained at the Quezon City Jail, has asthma and has been sleeping on the floor of the Quezon City Jail because he cannot pay for a “tarima” (cot) that costs P3,000.
Antonino Roda, detained at the Misamis Occidental Provincial Reformatory Jail, has severe kidney infection, urinating with blood for several times already.
According to Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda), there are 360 political prisoners in the country, including the 78 who were arrested under the Aquino administration. Eleven of them are elderly, while there are 43 who are sick. The group said these political prisoners should be released on humanitarian grounds.
“The political prisoners who have been languishing in jails for years don’t have money to buy for their medicines. And yet, the Aquino government will use people’s money for a human rights violator like Arroyo,” Fr. Dionito Cabillas of the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR), said.
Arroyo, now representative of Pampanga’s second district, has been under hospital arrest for charges of electoral sabotage. The local court recently issued a ruling ordering her transfer to the government-run Veterans Memorial Medical Center. Malacanang expressed willingness to shoulder the costs of Arroyo’s hospitalization.
In the same vein, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casio said, “It is ironic that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the one responsible for so many human rights violations, is being given special treatment and even pampered by the Aquino administration while her victims have to go on a hunger strike just to air their demands that should and can readily be granted by the authorities.”
Since Dec. 3, political prisoners in various detention facilities have launched hunger strike and other forms of protest.
“Arroyo should be nowhere but in jail,” said Angie Ipong, Selda secretary general.
“This [special treatment to Arroyo] is unacceptable for the 360 political prisoners who are charged with trumped up charges and imprisoned because of political beliefs, who are now languishing in jails in dire conditions,” Ipong said.
“She has no life-threatening illness, but is very comfortable in the hospital. Political prisoners, on the other hand, do not receive proper medical treatment for their grave illnesses,” Ipong said.
The group cited the case of Crisanto Tomarse Fat who died of heart ailment while in jail at the Negros Provincial Jail on Sept. 20. Fat, a peasant leader in Moises Padilla town in Negros Occidental, was falsely charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Rolando Paamogan, 47, arrested in January 2002, is suffering from diabetes, toxic goiter and congestive heart disease. Paamogan, a leader of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Ponpunan, Baybay, Leyte, is now detained at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. He has been confined at the NBP hospital, where facilities and attending medical personnel are scarce. On several occasions, he had been rushed to the clinic for shortness of breath and convulsive seizure. “He, who is not guilty of the trumped-up charges the government filed against him, has no money to buy for his medicines,” Cabillas said.
Another political prisoner detained at the NBP, Rogelio Natividad, 61, has been in jail for the last 20 years. “Compounding his long years of imprisonment are the inhumane conditions in jail where there is meager food ration and poor hygiene which has resulted in his kidney infection, ulcer and hypertension. He has been found to have kidney stones, which is currently causing him pain,” Selda said.
Bernardo Andrade, 61, a fisherman from Old Sagay, Sagay City, Negros Occidental, and who has been detained for ten years already, has diabetes, asthma and hypertension. Since his arrest in 2001, his family had never visited him for lack of financial and material support.
Cresenciano Inocerta, 64, has contracted tuberculosis while inside the jail in NBP. He underwent treatment for six months. He has been considered healed of tuberculosis but he continues to suffer from asthma, arthritis and constant cough. Like Andrade, Inocerta has never been visited by his family from Valencia, Negros Oriental due to lack of finances.
Manolito Matricio, 60, from Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental, has been suffering from arthritis, diabetes and hypertension. He is one of the “Mamburao 6” who were convicted of killing the two sons of a local land lord in Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro.
Ernesto Dumlao, detained at the Quezon City Jail, has asthma and has been sleeping on the floor of the Quezon City Jail because he cannot pay for a “tarima” (cot) that costs P3,000.
Antonino Roda, detained at the Misamis Occidental Provincial Reformatory Jail, has severe kidney infection, urinating with blood for several times already.
2011年12月6日星期二
Missus won’t stop me hitting rivals
The WBA and IBF world light-welterweight champ has a date with destiny on Saturday night when he defends his titles against Lamont Peterson.
He also has a date with Faryal Makhdoom some time soon as they are planning to get married after Khan admitted she is the one for him.
Girlfriend Faryal has never been to a boxing match and Khan is not sure how the 20-year-old student from New York will react when he starts trading punches with Peterson at the Washington Convention Centre.
But Khan, who will be 24 tomorrow, is sure of one thing — that he will never change.
He said: "Getting married won't change me. I will still be the same way. Faryal knew what I did for a living when we met. My sport will always be important to me. The family are good in that kind of situation because they take the pressure off me.
"Fighting must still come first while I am trying to achieve my aim of becoming the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
"She understands that. My fiancee knows my sport will come first because it is what I do."
Khan is waiting to hear if his girlfriend will be ringside to watch him live for the first time or whether she will watch on TV with his mum Falak back at their hotel here in DC.
Mum Falak used to watch all her son's fights from ringside but, as the bouts have got tougher and Khan takes more punishment, she has sat back at the hotel. She also does not want to see another woman's son get hurt by her own.
Khan added: "My fiancee may be at the fight but, then again, she may stay at the hotel with my mum. That does not really bother me either way because I am always 100 per cent focused when I am in the ring.
"I think of nothing except the fight ahead. I cannot afford to be distracted by anything or anyone.
"But, yes, I am looking forward to seeing her. It seems as if I have been in training camp in Los Angeles for ages. I've missed her."
Khan splashed out recently on an engagement sparkler for Faryal but he admitted: "I haven't even given her the ring yet!"
Hilary Clinton is another woman who may be ringside and Khan reckons he has a lot to thank the US Secretary of State for.
Border officials always used to stop Khan for extensive questioning when he arrived in the United States. But after meeting Mrs Clinton at an awards dinner for Muslims in sport, he no longer gets detained quite as long.
Khan was held for around three hours in his early days travelling to America to train with Freddie Roach.
He added: "I'd get here and my name would be flagged as a potential terrorist.
"I always had problems getting into the United States even when some of the officers from Mexico or Philippines recognised me as a boxer. They had to obey rules and detain me.
"I only waited 30 minutes this time! On some occasions I have been straight through without any delay at all. It's nice when that happens. I think the problem has been solved now so hopefully I won't get put in a room and left to wait again.
"But I know it only happens because of the world we live in.
"The officers are only doing their job and try to make sure only the right people get into the country."
World heavyweight champ WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO revealed he suffered the worst pain of his life — from kidney stones.
He also has a date with Faryal Makhdoom some time soon as they are planning to get married after Khan admitted she is the one for him.
Girlfriend Faryal has never been to a boxing match and Khan is not sure how the 20-year-old student from New York will react when he starts trading punches with Peterson at the Washington Convention Centre.
But Khan, who will be 24 tomorrow, is sure of one thing — that he will never change.
He said: "Getting married won't change me. I will still be the same way. Faryal knew what I did for a living when we met. My sport will always be important to me. The family are good in that kind of situation because they take the pressure off me.
"Fighting must still come first while I am trying to achieve my aim of becoming the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
"She understands that. My fiancee knows my sport will come first because it is what I do."
Khan is waiting to hear if his girlfriend will be ringside to watch him live for the first time or whether she will watch on TV with his mum Falak back at their hotel here in DC.
Mum Falak used to watch all her son's fights from ringside but, as the bouts have got tougher and Khan takes more punishment, she has sat back at the hotel. She also does not want to see another woman's son get hurt by her own.
Khan added: "My fiancee may be at the fight but, then again, she may stay at the hotel with my mum. That does not really bother me either way because I am always 100 per cent focused when I am in the ring.
"I think of nothing except the fight ahead. I cannot afford to be distracted by anything or anyone.
"But, yes, I am looking forward to seeing her. It seems as if I have been in training camp in Los Angeles for ages. I've missed her."
Khan splashed out recently on an engagement sparkler for Faryal but he admitted: "I haven't even given her the ring yet!"
Hilary Clinton is another woman who may be ringside and Khan reckons he has a lot to thank the US Secretary of State for.
Border officials always used to stop Khan for extensive questioning when he arrived in the United States. But after meeting Mrs Clinton at an awards dinner for Muslims in sport, he no longer gets detained quite as long.
Khan was held for around three hours in his early days travelling to America to train with Freddie Roach.
He added: "I'd get here and my name would be flagged as a potential terrorist.
"I always had problems getting into the United States even when some of the officers from Mexico or Philippines recognised me as a boxer. They had to obey rules and detain me.
"I only waited 30 minutes this time! On some occasions I have been straight through without any delay at all. It's nice when that happens. I think the problem has been solved now so hopefully I won't get put in a room and left to wait again.
"But I know it only happens because of the world we live in.
"The officers are only doing their job and try to make sure only the right people get into the country."
World heavyweight champ WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO revealed he suffered the worst pain of his life — from kidney stones.
2011年12月5日星期一
Diets, salts and the benefits of an alkaline diet
Our blood is slightly alkaline. The theory behind the alkaline diet is that our diet should reflect this pH level and be slightly alkaline. An alkaline diet is a diet that is predominantly made up of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and lentils. As a general guideline, our diet should consist of 60pc alkaline-forming foods and 40pc acid-forming foods to maintain good health.
Almost all foods that we eat, after being digested, absorbed and metabolised, release either an acid or an alkaline base into the blood. Meat, poultry, fish, grains, cheese, milk, salt and sugar all produce acid, so the rise in our consumption of these foods means that the typical western diet has became more acid-producing than ever.
Also, consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables has decreased over the years, which means we are consuming fewer alkalising foods which can further contribute to an imbalance.
Advocates of alkaline diets believe that a diet high in acid-producing foods disrupts our pH balance and promotes the loss of essential minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium and sodium as the body tries to restore equilibrium. This imbalance is thought to make people more prone to illness. For example, recent medical research suggests that alkaline diets may help prevent the formation of calcium kidney stones and osteoporosis. In addition, respiratory issues such as excessive mucous production or frequent colds and flu respond well to alkaline diets.
I've been told to cut down on salt but I'm confused about how to gauge salt content in food items. Should I be watching the sodium or salt content?
AMany people confuse sodium with salt. In fact, sodium only makes up a small portion of salt. Most labels only list sodium content which makes it difficult to know how much salt is in our food. Where sodium is listed, we need to multiply the figure for sodium by 2.5 to get the amount of salt. This is especially important for people who are trying to keep their blood pressure down.
A high salt intake is responsible for about one in three new cases of high blood pressure. It also increase a person's risk of developing kidney disease, stomach cancer and osteoporosis.
The average daily salt intake in Ireland is high -- approximately 10g in adults. For optimum health, adults should ideally consume no more than 4g of salt per day, however, 6g (1 teaspoon) is generally accepted as a realistic target.
The easiest way to cut down on your salt intake is to reduce the amount of processed foods you eat. Processed foods that typically have high salt levels include condiments, soups, sauces, crisps, bread, pizza, ready-made meals and lunch meats.
Almost all foods that we eat, after being digested, absorbed and metabolised, release either an acid or an alkaline base into the blood. Meat, poultry, fish, grains, cheese, milk, salt and sugar all produce acid, so the rise in our consumption of these foods means that the typical western diet has became more acid-producing than ever.
Also, consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables has decreased over the years, which means we are consuming fewer alkalising foods which can further contribute to an imbalance.
Advocates of alkaline diets believe that a diet high in acid-producing foods disrupts our pH balance and promotes the loss of essential minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium and sodium as the body tries to restore equilibrium. This imbalance is thought to make people more prone to illness. For example, recent medical research suggests that alkaline diets may help prevent the formation of calcium kidney stones and osteoporosis. In addition, respiratory issues such as excessive mucous production or frequent colds and flu respond well to alkaline diets.
I've been told to cut down on salt but I'm confused about how to gauge salt content in food items. Should I be watching the sodium or salt content?
AMany people confuse sodium with salt. In fact, sodium only makes up a small portion of salt. Most labels only list sodium content which makes it difficult to know how much salt is in our food. Where sodium is listed, we need to multiply the figure for sodium by 2.5 to get the amount of salt. This is especially important for people who are trying to keep their blood pressure down.
A high salt intake is responsible for about one in three new cases of high blood pressure. It also increase a person's risk of developing kidney disease, stomach cancer and osteoporosis.
The average daily salt intake in Ireland is high -- approximately 10g in adults. For optimum health, adults should ideally consume no more than 4g of salt per day, however, 6g (1 teaspoon) is generally accepted as a realistic target.
The easiest way to cut down on your salt intake is to reduce the amount of processed foods you eat. Processed foods that typically have high salt levels include condiments, soups, sauces, crisps, bread, pizza, ready-made meals and lunch meats.
2011年12月4日星期日
Men in St. Paul's Ujamaa Place program are at bottom, but looking up
Ronnell Roberson has been shot five times and knows too well what prison life is like. But until recently, the 27-year-old former gang member and father of two had never stepped foot inside a history museum.
"As many times as I drove past it in a car or by bus, I did not know that someone like me could go inside there," Roberson said of his trip last month to the Minnesota History Center on Kellogg Boulevard in St. Paul.
Most of us don't think such a visit is a big deal. But for men like Roberson seeking a serious change in their lives, walking into such a place and learning about history and family genealogy is a milestone, an "aha!" moment.
That's one of the reasons he's sticking with Ujamaa Place, an ambitious project in St. Paul that has gained support from an array of people in the Twin Cities' civic, business and faith-based communities. Ujamaa translates to "extended family" in Swahili.
The year-old effort, in a "gang-neutral" site off University Avenue West and Fairview Avenue, may be the last hope for hard-core cases like Roberson.
"It focuses on folks in our community that are at danger of becoming a lost generation of men," said Bill Svrluga, a longtime Twin Cities civic figure and Ujamaa board member who runs a nonprofit consulting firm.
"These are young men with little or no education, from families without fathers or parents; many have gone to prison, and there's really no place for them left to go to become productive members of society," Svrluga said. "They are at the bottom of the ladder, and many end up in jail or dead by 35."
The effort, which officially opened in January, exclusively targets males, predominantly African-American, 18 to 31 years old. Most of the 30-member clientele never finished high school and are chronically unemployed. Roughly 60 percent have criminal histories.
The statistics in recent decades on such men - caught in a cycle of poverty, drug addiction, joblessness, homelessness, violence and criminality - are a national concern:
In 2004, fewer than 8 percent of young African-American men graduated from college. The unemployment rate for young African-American men is more than twice that for young white, Hispanic and Asian-American men. The percentage of young African-American men in prison is nearly three times that of Latino men and nearly seven times that of white men. The homicide death rate for young African-American men is three times the rate for Hispanics, the population group with the next-highest homicide mortality rate.
Roy Barker, the nonprofit's executive director and the driving force behind the effort, might have the toughest job in town. But the 58-year-old Bethel College graduate and others believe it can be done. How? Through a holistic approach that includes completing a high-school diploma equivalency and other training; stable housing; and parenting, life and employment skills.
"As many times as I drove past it in a car or by bus, I did not know that someone like me could go inside there," Roberson said of his trip last month to the Minnesota History Center on Kellogg Boulevard in St. Paul.
Most of us don't think such a visit is a big deal. But for men like Roberson seeking a serious change in their lives, walking into such a place and learning about history and family genealogy is a milestone, an "aha!" moment.
That's one of the reasons he's sticking with Ujamaa Place, an ambitious project in St. Paul that has gained support from an array of people in the Twin Cities' civic, business and faith-based communities. Ujamaa translates to "extended family" in Swahili.
The year-old effort, in a "gang-neutral" site off University Avenue West and Fairview Avenue, may be the last hope for hard-core cases like Roberson.
"It focuses on folks in our community that are at danger of becoming a lost generation of men," said Bill Svrluga, a longtime Twin Cities civic figure and Ujamaa board member who runs a nonprofit consulting firm.
"These are young men with little or no education, from families without fathers or parents; many have gone to prison, and there's really no place for them left to go to become productive members of society," Svrluga said. "They are at the bottom of the ladder, and many end up in jail or dead by 35."
The effort, which officially opened in January, exclusively targets males, predominantly African-American, 18 to 31 years old. Most of the 30-member clientele never finished high school and are chronically unemployed. Roughly 60 percent have criminal histories.
The statistics in recent decades on such men - caught in a cycle of poverty, drug addiction, joblessness, homelessness, violence and criminality - are a national concern:
In 2004, fewer than 8 percent of young African-American men graduated from college. The unemployment rate for young African-American men is more than twice that for young white, Hispanic and Asian-American men. The percentage of young African-American men in prison is nearly three times that of Latino men and nearly seven times that of white men. The homicide death rate for young African-American men is three times the rate for Hispanics, the population group with the next-highest homicide mortality rate.
Roy Barker, the nonprofit's executive director and the driving force behind the effort, might have the toughest job in town. But the 58-year-old Bethel College graduate and others believe it can be done. How? Through a holistic approach that includes completing a high-school diploma equivalency and other training; stable housing; and parenting, life and employment skills.
2011年12月1日星期四
China's Mengniu Dairy Recovers
Mengnuu Dairy Co, a onetime stock market darling that was at the center of one of China’s worst food scandals, announced Thursday that it is once again distributing milk products in Hong Kong after a three-year absence.
The company says its products have passed stringent heat preservation and other tests and have obtained quality hygiene certificates from mainland authorities. The Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department are also responsible for assuring quality and safety, according to a news release.
Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety (CFS) said in an email that permission had been granted in October for the import of two Mengniu products and that imported consignments hadbeen inspected and released in November.
In 2008, the Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu, which is privately owned and publicly traded, as well as some of China’s other biggest dairy companies including the state-owned Yili and Yahsli were found to be distributing milk and infant formula and other food products adulterated with melamine, an industrial resin used in a wide variety of laminates, glues, adhesives, molding compounds and other substances.
Mengniu, which paid some of China’s highest prices for raw products, was buying from dairies that were adulterating the milk with melamine in a bid to boost protein content. By November of 2008, an estimated 300,000 children were victims, with six dying from kidney stones and other kidney damage and another 860 babies hospitalized.
The resultant scandal caused a crisis of confidence in China’s food distribution system from which the country still is attempting to recover. Authorities were accused of covering up the scandal for months to avoid national embarrassment in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Three years later, middle-class Chinese consumers still tend to shy away from domestic milk products, instead looking for safety in western products, according to a study by Synovate Global Market Research. Indeed, as late as July 2010, authorities said they were still seizing melamine-contaminated products in some provinces. It was unclear, however, whether the contaminations were new or resulting from illegal resale of products from the 2008 scandal.
A wide variety of western chains stopped buying Chinese milk products including KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks, which replaced its Mengniu product with soy milk. The market share of foreign brands including Meadjohnson, Dumex, Abbott, and Wyeth soared. A US baby milk powder brand called Bright Beginnings reported sales volume had rise by 600 percent during the first week after the scandal was reported. Eleven countries announced they were stopping all imports of Chinese food products.
A dairy farmer who added the substance to the milk and a salesman who peddled it were executed, three were given life sentences and two more were given 15-year sentences. However, in many cases the families of the children who were affected are still trying to win redress. Officials of Sanlu, the biggest distributor selling milk products to the retail dairy operations, have never been charged or arrested despite the fact that melatonin levels found were among the highest. That has awakened charges that the company was being protected by officials.
In addition, the issue raised far wider concerns in China about the adulteration of lots of different food products including exploding watermelons caused by farmers who used chemicals to promote faster growth, bean sprouts treated with chemicals to make them grow faster, dumplings and steamed buns found to have levels of aluminum far above national standards, pork laced with the steroid clenbuterol to produce lean meat, and many others.
In February this year, reports surfaced that other dairies were using leather-hydrolyzed protein which, like melamine, boosts the protein content of milk. That report resulted in China’s closure of large numbers of dairies, some found to have with up to five times the legal limit of the substance.
The process of recovery for Mengniu has been long and painful. The company estimated a 2008 loss of 900 million yuan from inventory write-offs, plunging sales and damage-control expenditures. The company’s shares, trading at HK$35.80 per share at their 2007 peak, fell to HK$6 before recovering to hover at around HK$9. The shares have since recovered to trade in the HK$26 range.
After the scandal, Mengniu's spent a fortune on advertisements on CCTV, the country's largest TV station, and on outdoor billboards in major cities. It also invited consumers from all over the country to visit its farms and observe the milking process in the attempt to regain trust.
Mengniu said it had pledged US$100 million to upgrade the sources of its milk, investing in small and midsize ranches and dairy farms that it determined it could trust, In an attempt to build quality control, the company said in a prepared release, it has focused on constructing ranches and managing production to seek to maintain product quality. The Group recorded an annual turnover of RMB30 billion in 2010.
None of the scandal was mentioned in the press release issued yesterday announcing Mengniu’s return to Hong Kong. The products, the company said, are being delivered from Inner Mongolia to Hong Kong gradually and have been put on shelves at more than 80 stores. The products are also to be put on shelves at another 90 stores within a month, making a total of more than 170 sales points. That is eventually expected to rise to 400 with the inclusion of Park'N Shop, retail stores and pharmacies. In Macau, Mengniu products are expected to be available for sale within two weeks.
In recent years, Mengniu has focused on constructing ranches and managing production to enhance product quality in every stage of production, with the aim to serve consumers and build strong market awareness in the mainland market.
The group's diversified products range includes liquid milk products, such as UHT milk, milk beverages and yogurt, ice cream and other dairy products such as milk powder. In June 2011, the Group's annual production capacity reached 6.76 million metric tons.
The company says its products have passed stringent heat preservation and other tests and have obtained quality hygiene certificates from mainland authorities. The Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department are also responsible for assuring quality and safety, according to a news release.
Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety (CFS) said in an email that permission had been granted in October for the import of two Mengniu products and that imported consignments hadbeen inspected and released in November.
In 2008, the Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu, which is privately owned and publicly traded, as well as some of China’s other biggest dairy companies including the state-owned Yili and Yahsli were found to be distributing milk and infant formula and other food products adulterated with melamine, an industrial resin used in a wide variety of laminates, glues, adhesives, molding compounds and other substances.
Mengniu, which paid some of China’s highest prices for raw products, was buying from dairies that were adulterating the milk with melamine in a bid to boost protein content. By November of 2008, an estimated 300,000 children were victims, with six dying from kidney stones and other kidney damage and another 860 babies hospitalized.
The resultant scandal caused a crisis of confidence in China’s food distribution system from which the country still is attempting to recover. Authorities were accused of covering up the scandal for months to avoid national embarrassment in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Three years later, middle-class Chinese consumers still tend to shy away from domestic milk products, instead looking for safety in western products, according to a study by Synovate Global Market Research. Indeed, as late as July 2010, authorities said they were still seizing melamine-contaminated products in some provinces. It was unclear, however, whether the contaminations were new or resulting from illegal resale of products from the 2008 scandal.
A wide variety of western chains stopped buying Chinese milk products including KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks, which replaced its Mengniu product with soy milk. The market share of foreign brands including Meadjohnson, Dumex, Abbott, and Wyeth soared. A US baby milk powder brand called Bright Beginnings reported sales volume had rise by 600 percent during the first week after the scandal was reported. Eleven countries announced they were stopping all imports of Chinese food products.
A dairy farmer who added the substance to the milk and a salesman who peddled it were executed, three were given life sentences and two more were given 15-year sentences. However, in many cases the families of the children who were affected are still trying to win redress. Officials of Sanlu, the biggest distributor selling milk products to the retail dairy operations, have never been charged or arrested despite the fact that melatonin levels found were among the highest. That has awakened charges that the company was being protected by officials.
In addition, the issue raised far wider concerns in China about the adulteration of lots of different food products including exploding watermelons caused by farmers who used chemicals to promote faster growth, bean sprouts treated with chemicals to make them grow faster, dumplings and steamed buns found to have levels of aluminum far above national standards, pork laced with the steroid clenbuterol to produce lean meat, and many others.
In February this year, reports surfaced that other dairies were using leather-hydrolyzed protein which, like melamine, boosts the protein content of milk. That report resulted in China’s closure of large numbers of dairies, some found to have with up to five times the legal limit of the substance.
The process of recovery for Mengniu has been long and painful. The company estimated a 2008 loss of 900 million yuan from inventory write-offs, plunging sales and damage-control expenditures. The company’s shares, trading at HK$35.80 per share at their 2007 peak, fell to HK$6 before recovering to hover at around HK$9. The shares have since recovered to trade in the HK$26 range.
After the scandal, Mengniu's spent a fortune on advertisements on CCTV, the country's largest TV station, and on outdoor billboards in major cities. It also invited consumers from all over the country to visit its farms and observe the milking process in the attempt to regain trust.
Mengniu said it had pledged US$100 million to upgrade the sources of its milk, investing in small and midsize ranches and dairy farms that it determined it could trust, In an attempt to build quality control, the company said in a prepared release, it has focused on constructing ranches and managing production to seek to maintain product quality. The Group recorded an annual turnover of RMB30 billion in 2010.
None of the scandal was mentioned in the press release issued yesterday announcing Mengniu’s return to Hong Kong. The products, the company said, are being delivered from Inner Mongolia to Hong Kong gradually and have been put on shelves at more than 80 stores. The products are also to be put on shelves at another 90 stores within a month, making a total of more than 170 sales points. That is eventually expected to rise to 400 with the inclusion of Park'N Shop, retail stores and pharmacies. In Macau, Mengniu products are expected to be available for sale within two weeks.
In recent years, Mengniu has focused on constructing ranches and managing production to enhance product quality in every stage of production, with the aim to serve consumers and build strong market awareness in the mainland market.
The group's diversified products range includes liquid milk products, such as UHT milk, milk beverages and yogurt, ice cream and other dairy products such as milk powder. In June 2011, the Group's annual production capacity reached 6.76 million metric tons.
2011年11月30日星期三
Human organs can now be grown, one cell at a time
Luke Masella was born with spina bifida, and after 10 years it was getting the best of him.
The congenital disorder affects the development of the nerves and vertebrae along the spinal cord, and can result in paralysis, neurological complications and organ damage.
In Masella's case, his bladder was failing and he spent much of his early childhood in the hospital. He was plagued by aches and pains, and often was too tired and lethargic to get out of bed. Because his bladder didn't work properly, his kidneys were shutting down.
"I remember being really scared," said Masella, a native of Madison, Conn. "I thought I was going to die."
Masella was gravely ill and needed a new bladder. This was 2001, and conventional treatment would have been to use a portion of Masella's intestine to make a new bladder.
But because the intestine is designed to absorb nutrients and a bladder is designed to excrete, it's a risky procedure, especially with young patients who often develop kidney stones and cancer.
So Masella was referred to Dr. Anthony Atala, then at Children's Hospital Boston. Atala is a pioneer in regenerative medicine, a cutting-edge field of study in which a patient's own cells are used to grow healthy tissue and organs. He has been director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina since 2004.
To engineer a new bladder for Masella, Atala took samples of muscle cells from his bladder and grew them in a Petri dish. Once he had grown enough, he attached the cells to a bladder-shaped framework or scaffolding he created using collagen, the primary biological material found in skin and connective tissue.
The biological structure was placed inside an incubator, where it continued to grow for two months.
"It's like cooking a layered cake," Atala said.
Finally, the engineered bladder was sutured to Masella's original bladder. The biodegradable scaffolding dissolved, and as the new bladder integrated with the body, it grew its own blood supply and nerves.
Masella soon made a full recovery and went on to captain his high school wrestling team. He's now a healthy 21-year-old junior at the University of Connecticut.
Masella was one of the country's first patients to receive a regenerated organ grown from his own cells. Atala has since performed similar procedures many times, growing and implanting everything from urethras and skin to cartilage.
Atala and his team at Wake Forest are now working on more than 30 replacement tissues and organs for future trials, including the kidney, liver and even the heart.
Part of this groundbreaking research includes a technique called "bioprinting." While it may sound like science fiction, Atala said that in the last decade great strides have been made with this technology, in which modified inkjet printers are used to create biological molds of organs.
Rather than ink, the jury-rigged printers spray cells and heat-sensitive gel that fuse together to form tissue and organs.
Atala said he's made a number of organs and tissue prototypes using this technique, but none that is suitable to be placed inside a human.
Nonetheless, as the technology continues to advance, it stands to revolutionize how science treats diseased and injured tissues and organs.
One potential application is bioprinting skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns. Using this still-developing technology, skin cells could one day be printed directly on the soldier's wound.
And because regenerative medicine uses a patient's own cells to create organs and tissue, it eliminates much of the risk that the patient's body will reject a donor organ.
The congenital disorder affects the development of the nerves and vertebrae along the spinal cord, and can result in paralysis, neurological complications and organ damage.
In Masella's case, his bladder was failing and he spent much of his early childhood in the hospital. He was plagued by aches and pains, and often was too tired and lethargic to get out of bed. Because his bladder didn't work properly, his kidneys were shutting down.
"I remember being really scared," said Masella, a native of Madison, Conn. "I thought I was going to die."
Masella was gravely ill and needed a new bladder. This was 2001, and conventional treatment would have been to use a portion of Masella's intestine to make a new bladder.
But because the intestine is designed to absorb nutrients and a bladder is designed to excrete, it's a risky procedure, especially with young patients who often develop kidney stones and cancer.
So Masella was referred to Dr. Anthony Atala, then at Children's Hospital Boston. Atala is a pioneer in regenerative medicine, a cutting-edge field of study in which a patient's own cells are used to grow healthy tissue and organs. He has been director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina since 2004.
To engineer a new bladder for Masella, Atala took samples of muscle cells from his bladder and grew them in a Petri dish. Once he had grown enough, he attached the cells to a bladder-shaped framework or scaffolding he created using collagen, the primary biological material found in skin and connective tissue.
The biological structure was placed inside an incubator, where it continued to grow for two months.
"It's like cooking a layered cake," Atala said.
Finally, the engineered bladder was sutured to Masella's original bladder. The biodegradable scaffolding dissolved, and as the new bladder integrated with the body, it grew its own blood supply and nerves.
Masella soon made a full recovery and went on to captain his high school wrestling team. He's now a healthy 21-year-old junior at the University of Connecticut.
Masella was one of the country's first patients to receive a regenerated organ grown from his own cells. Atala has since performed similar procedures many times, growing and implanting everything from urethras and skin to cartilage.
Atala and his team at Wake Forest are now working on more than 30 replacement tissues and organs for future trials, including the kidney, liver and even the heart.
Part of this groundbreaking research includes a technique called "bioprinting." While it may sound like science fiction, Atala said that in the last decade great strides have been made with this technology, in which modified inkjet printers are used to create biological molds of organs.
Rather than ink, the jury-rigged printers spray cells and heat-sensitive gel that fuse together to form tissue and organs.
Atala said he's made a number of organs and tissue prototypes using this technique, but none that is suitable to be placed inside a human.
Nonetheless, as the technology continues to advance, it stands to revolutionize how science treats diseased and injured tissues and organs.
One potential application is bioprinting skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns. Using this still-developing technology, skin cells could one day be printed directly on the soldier's wound.
And because regenerative medicine uses a patient's own cells to create organs and tissue, it eliminates much of the risk that the patient's body will reject a donor organ.
2011年11月29日星期二
Local hero Pearce shows the pluck of Irish
THE mid-afternoon slumber of a Fitzroy side street is ripped asunder as the front door of the heritage-listed Independent Hall explodes off its hinges.
A belch of smoke erupts from the former Congregationalist church building, and a ball of flame shoots across the narrow road. Dust and debris follow in a grey, stinky ball. And there, in the middle of it all, stands Guy Pearce.
Actually, it's not Guy Pearce, it's someone who looks a lot like him from a distance and a lot less like him up close. But the magic of digital effects will soon plop our Emmy Award-winning hero in the middle of all this chaos and we'll happily forget the stuntman ever existed.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Pearce is back in his home town to play Jack Irish, the hero of four novels by crime writer Peter Temple and now the titular character of a pair of telemovies being made for the ABC.
Producer Ian Collie says it was a boon to land Pearce for the role.
''Guy was always on our wish list, but we thought he would be too busy; he's internationally respected, he's not going to want to do TV work,'' says Collie. ''But it just shows how much things have changed. Increasingly, good actors will be attracted to a TV project if the scripts and production values are there.''
Neither should be a problem: production company Essential Media is spending a healthy $5.6 million on the two 90-minute telemovies, and Andrew Knight is writing the first of them.
The cast is impressive, too: as well as Pearce, there's Crownies star Marta Dusseldorp as Jack's girlfriend Linda (a fictional journalist at this paper, no less), Aaron Pedersen as his sidekick Cam, and Shane Jacobsen, Colin Friels and Steve Bisley have supporting roles.
Yes, there's a lot of TV law-and-order on those collective CVs, but this is no standard procedural. ''This is different,'' says Collie. ''It's more nuanced and layered.''
For a start, Jack Irish isn't a cop. He's a lawyer, sort of. ''He's a bit of a jack of all trades, really. He does missing person searches, he's a cabinetmaker, he's a member of a horse-racing syndicate.'' Above all, he says, ''Jack is quite thoughtful and melancholic''.
On the day The Age visits, everything is running smoothly. But the eight-week shoot got off to a rough start when Pearce was diagnosed on day one with a kidney stone; they lost four days to his operation. ''He's in every scene, so there wasn't much we could do about that. It's not called Jack Irish for nothing.''
Still, it's not all about him. The stories are set solidly in a Melbourne that's at once recognisable and nostalgic, and the city emerges as a major character in its own right. ''It's almost a homage, or maybe a lament, for that old Melbourne that is disappearing,'' Collie says.
Jack's favourite hangout is the Prince of Prussia, described as one of the last ungentrified pubs in Fitzroy. ''It says everything that we're having to build it as a set in a studio,'' Collie says.
A belch of smoke erupts from the former Congregationalist church building, and a ball of flame shoots across the narrow road. Dust and debris follow in a grey, stinky ball. And there, in the middle of it all, stands Guy Pearce.
Actually, it's not Guy Pearce, it's someone who looks a lot like him from a distance and a lot less like him up close. But the magic of digital effects will soon plop our Emmy Award-winning hero in the middle of all this chaos and we'll happily forget the stuntman ever existed.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Pearce is back in his home town to play Jack Irish, the hero of four novels by crime writer Peter Temple and now the titular character of a pair of telemovies being made for the ABC.
Producer Ian Collie says it was a boon to land Pearce for the role.
''Guy was always on our wish list, but we thought he would be too busy; he's internationally respected, he's not going to want to do TV work,'' says Collie. ''But it just shows how much things have changed. Increasingly, good actors will be attracted to a TV project if the scripts and production values are there.''
Neither should be a problem: production company Essential Media is spending a healthy $5.6 million on the two 90-minute telemovies, and Andrew Knight is writing the first of them.
The cast is impressive, too: as well as Pearce, there's Crownies star Marta Dusseldorp as Jack's girlfriend Linda (a fictional journalist at this paper, no less), Aaron Pedersen as his sidekick Cam, and Shane Jacobsen, Colin Friels and Steve Bisley have supporting roles.
Yes, there's a lot of TV law-and-order on those collective CVs, but this is no standard procedural. ''This is different,'' says Collie. ''It's more nuanced and layered.''
For a start, Jack Irish isn't a cop. He's a lawyer, sort of. ''He's a bit of a jack of all trades, really. He does missing person searches, he's a cabinetmaker, he's a member of a horse-racing syndicate.'' Above all, he says, ''Jack is quite thoughtful and melancholic''.
On the day The Age visits, everything is running smoothly. But the eight-week shoot got off to a rough start when Pearce was diagnosed on day one with a kidney stone; they lost four days to his operation. ''He's in every scene, so there wasn't much we could do about that. It's not called Jack Irish for nothing.''
Still, it's not all about him. The stories are set solidly in a Melbourne that's at once recognisable and nostalgic, and the city emerges as a major character in its own right. ''It's almost a homage, or maybe a lament, for that old Melbourne that is disappearing,'' Collie says.
Jack's favourite hangout is the Prince of Prussia, described as one of the last ungentrified pubs in Fitzroy. ''It says everything that we're having to build it as a set in a studio,'' Collie says.
2011年11月28日星期一
Growing organs, cell at a time
Luke Masella was born with spina bifida, and after 10 years it was getting the best of him. The congenital disorder affects the development of the nerves and vertebrae along the spinal cord, and can result in paralysis, neurological complications and organ damage.
In Masella's case, his bladder was failing and he spent much of his early childhood in the hospital. He was plagued by aches and pains, and often was too tired and lethargic to get out of bed. Because his bladder didn't work properly, his kidneys were shutting down.
"I remember being really scared," said Masella, a native of Madison, Conn. "I thought I was going to die."
Masella was gravely ill and needed a new bladder. This was 2001, and conventional treatment would have been to use a portion of Masella's intestine to make a new bladder. But because the intestine is designed to absorb nutrients and a bladder is designed to excrete, it's a risky procedure, especially with young patients who often develop kidney stones and cancer.
So Masella was referred to Dr. Anthony Atala, who was then at Children's Hospital Boston. Atala is a pioneer in regenerative medicine, a cutting-edge field of study in which a patient's own cells are used to grow healthy tissue and organs. He's been director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine since 2004.
To engineer a new bladder for Masella, Atala first took samples of muscle cells from his bladder and grew them in a petri dish. Once he had grown enough, he attached the cells to a bladder-shaped framework or scaffolding he created using collagen, the primary biological material found in skin and connective tissue.
The biological structure was placed inside an incubator, where it continued to grow for about two months.
"It's like cooking a layered cake," Atala said.
Finally, the engineered bladder was sutured to Masella's original bladder. The biodegradable scaffolding dissolved, and as the new bladder integrated with the body, it grew its own blood supply and nerves.
Masella soon made a full recovery and went on to captain his high school wrestling team. He's now a healthy 21-year-old junior at the University of Connecticut.
Masella was one of the country's first patients to receive a regenerated organ grown from his own cells. Atala has since performed similar procedures many times, growing and implanting everything from urethras and skin to cartilage.
Atala and his team at Wake Forest are now working on more than 30 different replacement tissues and organs for future trials, such as the kidney, liver and even the heart.
Next step: 'Bioprinting'
Part of this groundbreaking research includes a technique called "bioprinting." While it may sound like science fiction, Atala said that in the last decade great strides have been made with this technology, in which modified inkjet printers are used to create biological molds of organs.
Rather than ink, the jury-rigged printers spray cells and heat-sensitive gel that fuse together to form tissue and organs. As 3-D printers have gotten more sophisticated over the years - they essentially lay down alternating, successive layers of material - so too has the potential of using this technology to create complex organs.
Atala said he's made a number of organs and tissue prototypes using this technique, but none that are suitable to be placed inside a human patient. Nonetheless, as the technology continues to advance, it stands to revolutionize how science treats diseased and injured tissues and organs.
One potential application of this technology is the bioprinting of skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns. Using this still-developing technology, skin cells could one day be printed directly on the soldier's wound.
And because regenerative medicine uses a patient's own cells to create organs and tissue, it eliminates much of the risk that the patient's body will reject a donor organ. It also provides a potential solution to the shortage of donor organs for those who need transplants.
In Masella's case, his bladder was failing and he spent much of his early childhood in the hospital. He was plagued by aches and pains, and often was too tired and lethargic to get out of bed. Because his bladder didn't work properly, his kidneys were shutting down.
"I remember being really scared," said Masella, a native of Madison, Conn. "I thought I was going to die."
Masella was gravely ill and needed a new bladder. This was 2001, and conventional treatment would have been to use a portion of Masella's intestine to make a new bladder. But because the intestine is designed to absorb nutrients and a bladder is designed to excrete, it's a risky procedure, especially with young patients who often develop kidney stones and cancer.
So Masella was referred to Dr. Anthony Atala, who was then at Children's Hospital Boston. Atala is a pioneer in regenerative medicine, a cutting-edge field of study in which a patient's own cells are used to grow healthy tissue and organs. He's been director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine since 2004.
To engineer a new bladder for Masella, Atala first took samples of muscle cells from his bladder and grew them in a petri dish. Once he had grown enough, he attached the cells to a bladder-shaped framework or scaffolding he created using collagen, the primary biological material found in skin and connective tissue.
The biological structure was placed inside an incubator, where it continued to grow for about two months.
"It's like cooking a layered cake," Atala said.
Finally, the engineered bladder was sutured to Masella's original bladder. The biodegradable scaffolding dissolved, and as the new bladder integrated with the body, it grew its own blood supply and nerves.
Masella soon made a full recovery and went on to captain his high school wrestling team. He's now a healthy 21-year-old junior at the University of Connecticut.
Masella was one of the country's first patients to receive a regenerated organ grown from his own cells. Atala has since performed similar procedures many times, growing and implanting everything from urethras and skin to cartilage.
Atala and his team at Wake Forest are now working on more than 30 different replacement tissues and organs for future trials, such as the kidney, liver and even the heart.
Next step: 'Bioprinting'
Part of this groundbreaking research includes a technique called "bioprinting." While it may sound like science fiction, Atala said that in the last decade great strides have been made with this technology, in which modified inkjet printers are used to create biological molds of organs.
Rather than ink, the jury-rigged printers spray cells and heat-sensitive gel that fuse together to form tissue and organs. As 3-D printers have gotten more sophisticated over the years - they essentially lay down alternating, successive layers of material - so too has the potential of using this technology to create complex organs.
Atala said he's made a number of organs and tissue prototypes using this technique, but none that are suitable to be placed inside a human patient. Nonetheless, as the technology continues to advance, it stands to revolutionize how science treats diseased and injured tissues and organs.
One potential application of this technology is the bioprinting of skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns. Using this still-developing technology, skin cells could one day be printed directly on the soldier's wound.
And because regenerative medicine uses a patient's own cells to create organs and tissue, it eliminates much of the risk that the patient's body will reject a donor organ. It also provides a potential solution to the shortage of donor organs for those who need transplants.
2011年11月27日星期日
In cashless mediclaim, act on time to avoid hassles
Sanjeev Sharma, a middle-aged man, who maintains a healthy lifestyle, one day felt a severe pain in his abdomen.
Immediately, he was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was admitted and kept under observation for a day. Doctors reported that the patient has kidney stones, which can be treated by medicine, however, he needs to be kept under observation for 24 hours.
As per the doctor’s advice, he spent the night in the hospital and started taking medication prescribed by the doctor.
His wife paid the hospital bills and other expenses related to the hospitalisation, but later when they registered a claim with the insurance company, the claim was not accepted. The insurance company said that hospitalisation was not necessary at all for his condition.
Later on, when a complaint was registered with the insurance ombudsman, the decision came in favour of the policyholder, based on the doctor’s report, which said that the patient needed medical supervision.
Situations like these put additional and unwarranted pressure on policyholders and their family members.
Emergency definition: Insurance companies generally categorise emergencies as medical and surgical. Surgical emergencies are generally accident cases and trauma. In addition, surgical emergency may include other surgical problems like acute abdominal pain or dislocation of a joint and any other problem where an emergency surgery is required to stabilise the patient. For example, rupture of an infected appendix.
Medical emergencies commonly include heart-related emergencies, brain stroke, asthma, epilepsy, seizures, complications from high blood pressure or blood sugar.
“Accidental hospitalisation is covered under all health insurance policies. There is generally no waiting period for accident cases. Hence, there is very little chance of authorisation being denied in the presence of a valid policy and insurance limit available,” said Sanjay Datta, head of underwriting and claims of ICICI Lombard General Insurance.
The normal processing time for cashless treatment for non-emergency cases is three to four hours from the time of receipt of complete information from the hospital. But to expedite the entire process, insurers and third-party administrators (TPAs) request the network hospitals to inform them as soon as a patient is admitted.
The contact number of TPAs and helpline number of insurers are mentioned on policy documents and the policyholder needs to coordinate with the hospital to have the details sent to the TPA for authorisation of cashless service. On discharge, the policyholder needs to verify and sign the bills and pay for the items that are not covered under the health policy. The policy document contains all the details about the expenses that are payable under the policy. The original discharge summary and other investigation reports should be handed over to the hospital. However, a policyholder must retain a copy for records.
In case a policyholder goes to a non-network hospital (where policyholder cannot avail cashless facility) for an emergency situation, the policyholder has to register a claim with the TPA within seven days of discharge.
For emergency conditions, policyholders are asked to pay a nominal deposit as per the norms of the treating hospital, which may differ from one hospital to another.
Immediately, he was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was admitted and kept under observation for a day. Doctors reported that the patient has kidney stones, which can be treated by medicine, however, he needs to be kept under observation for 24 hours.
As per the doctor’s advice, he spent the night in the hospital and started taking medication prescribed by the doctor.
His wife paid the hospital bills and other expenses related to the hospitalisation, but later when they registered a claim with the insurance company, the claim was not accepted. The insurance company said that hospitalisation was not necessary at all for his condition.
Later on, when a complaint was registered with the insurance ombudsman, the decision came in favour of the policyholder, based on the doctor’s report, which said that the patient needed medical supervision.
Situations like these put additional and unwarranted pressure on policyholders and their family members.
Emergency definition: Insurance companies generally categorise emergencies as medical and surgical. Surgical emergencies are generally accident cases and trauma. In addition, surgical emergency may include other surgical problems like acute abdominal pain or dislocation of a joint and any other problem where an emergency surgery is required to stabilise the patient. For example, rupture of an infected appendix.
Medical emergencies commonly include heart-related emergencies, brain stroke, asthma, epilepsy, seizures, complications from high blood pressure or blood sugar.
“Accidental hospitalisation is covered under all health insurance policies. There is generally no waiting period for accident cases. Hence, there is very little chance of authorisation being denied in the presence of a valid policy and insurance limit available,” said Sanjay Datta, head of underwriting and claims of ICICI Lombard General Insurance.
The normal processing time for cashless treatment for non-emergency cases is three to four hours from the time of receipt of complete information from the hospital. But to expedite the entire process, insurers and third-party administrators (TPAs) request the network hospitals to inform them as soon as a patient is admitted.
The contact number of TPAs and helpline number of insurers are mentioned on policy documents and the policyholder needs to coordinate with the hospital to have the details sent to the TPA for authorisation of cashless service. On discharge, the policyholder needs to verify and sign the bills and pay for the items that are not covered under the health policy. The policy document contains all the details about the expenses that are payable under the policy. The original discharge summary and other investigation reports should be handed over to the hospital. However, a policyholder must retain a copy for records.
In case a policyholder goes to a non-network hospital (where policyholder cannot avail cashless facility) for an emergency situation, the policyholder has to register a claim with the TPA within seven days of discharge.
For emergency conditions, policyholders are asked to pay a nominal deposit as per the norms of the treating hospital, which may differ from one hospital to another.
2011年11月24日星期四
Luckhardt will sit this game out
California University's football team will be missing a key component for its playoff game Saturday against Winston-Salem State.
Head coach John Luckhardt will miss the game because of a kidney stone and an accompanying infection. Luckhardt is receiving treatment for the two ailments and is expected to return to the sidelines if the Vulcans are playing next week.
Mike Kellar, the Vulcans' offensive coordinator, will run the offense and Mike Conway, the defensive coordinator, will handle the defense.
"I guess coach is putting us to the test," said Kellar, who was head football coach at Concord last season. "We're holding out a slight chance that he might be able to go. But it's 99 percent that he won't."
Kellar said Luckhardt has been battling this condition for a couple weeks. He came down with a fever Monday, so the coaching staff was preparing the week's work with the expectation Luckhardt would not be there.
"It didn't look good for him to go," Kellar said. "He's going to be fine. The problem has been that he has a kidney stone and they can't treat it because he's had this infection. And they can't treat the infection until they get rid of the kidney stone."
Luckhardt considered not traveling with the team in the PSAC crossover game against Cheyney but changed his mind and was on the sidelines for the Vulcans' 43-3 victory.
Luckhardt was on the sidelines again for last week's 44-0 victory over Elizabeth City State in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs. But he passed on attending the postgame news conference, sending Kellar and Conway in his place.
Cal, now 10-2, takes on the region's top-seed Winston-Salem State (10-0).
"We know John's philosophy," Kellar said. "It will be different, a new dynamic. I think the kids are going to be fine. The last couple of weeks, coach has been in and out with this. We gave them the heads-up this week, and they know it's not life-threatening."
Thomas Mayo, who leads Cal with 73 receptions for 1,230 yards and 16 touchdowns, said Luckhardt's absence will be a motivating factor.
"We want to win this game for him," said Mayo, who played on Kellar's team at Concord last year. "Things are not going to change much. We've got to play the game. We have a little more motivation now."
Among Luckhardt's many coaching milestones is that he is the all-time leader in victories at two colleges in the same county. He had a record in 16 seasons at Washington & Jefferson College, His record at California is 88-32 in 10 seasons.
The game, which kicks off at 1 p.m., won't be televised but the live stats can be found on Cal's Web page. WJPA will broadcast the game.
"I'll hate that he's not going to be there," said Kellar. "It's something we have to go through."
Head coach John Luckhardt will miss the game because of a kidney stone and an accompanying infection. Luckhardt is receiving treatment for the two ailments and is expected to return to the sidelines if the Vulcans are playing next week.
Mike Kellar, the Vulcans' offensive coordinator, will run the offense and Mike Conway, the defensive coordinator, will handle the defense.
"I guess coach is putting us to the test," said Kellar, who was head football coach at Concord last season. "We're holding out a slight chance that he might be able to go. But it's 99 percent that he won't."
Kellar said Luckhardt has been battling this condition for a couple weeks. He came down with a fever Monday, so the coaching staff was preparing the week's work with the expectation Luckhardt would not be there.
"It didn't look good for him to go," Kellar said. "He's going to be fine. The problem has been that he has a kidney stone and they can't treat it because he's had this infection. And they can't treat the infection until they get rid of the kidney stone."
Luckhardt considered not traveling with the team in the PSAC crossover game against Cheyney but changed his mind and was on the sidelines for the Vulcans' 43-3 victory.
Luckhardt was on the sidelines again for last week's 44-0 victory over Elizabeth City State in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs. But he passed on attending the postgame news conference, sending Kellar and Conway in his place.
Cal, now 10-2, takes on the region's top-seed Winston-Salem State (10-0).
"We know John's philosophy," Kellar said. "It will be different, a new dynamic. I think the kids are going to be fine. The last couple of weeks, coach has been in and out with this. We gave them the heads-up this week, and they know it's not life-threatening."
Thomas Mayo, who leads Cal with 73 receptions for 1,230 yards and 16 touchdowns, said Luckhardt's absence will be a motivating factor.
"We want to win this game for him," said Mayo, who played on Kellar's team at Concord last year. "Things are not going to change much. We've got to play the game. We have a little more motivation now."
Among Luckhardt's many coaching milestones is that he is the all-time leader in victories at two colleges in the same county. He had a record in 16 seasons at Washington & Jefferson College, His record at California is 88-32 in 10 seasons.
The game, which kicks off at 1 p.m., won't be televised but the live stats can be found on Cal's Web page. WJPA will broadcast the game.
"I'll hate that he's not going to be there," said Kellar. "It's something we have to go through."
2011年11月23日星期三
Zumba helped me overcome my anorexia demons says Sophie Winter
SOPHIE Winter always enjoyed staying fit with regular visits to the gym. But what started as a passion became an obsession which saw the teenager walking 20 miles a day while eating only mints and iced drinks.
Now, after discovering Zumba Sophie, who at her lowest weighed less than six stones, has turned her life around.
“It’s true. Zumba really has helped save my life,” she smiles.
“I realised that to run a successful business, to get the most out of every day and to realise my dreams, I couldn’t afford to be ill. I had to buck my ideas up and that meant starting to eat again.
“Now I run 12 Zumba classes and have big plans for the future.”
Sophie, who is now 20 and lives in Scarisbrick, says that as a young teenager she regularly helped out at local beauty pageants.
“I never took part but I’d help the photographer and hand out the prizes and I think a lot of my issues stem from that time.
“I was probably a size eight or so but I knew I’d never look like one of those pageant models; they were so glamorous and thin and I just didn’t see myself like that.”
As she grew a little older her weight fluctuated slightly but, she says, it was never a problem and although she wasn’t sporty at school she enjoyed keeping fit at the gym.
“But I was exercising on my own. I’d be in there for ages and wouldn’t see or have to speak to anyone. It wasn’t a very social way to stay fit.”
Having left school at 16 and determined to build up her savings she found herself holding down three jobs.
“I worked in a pub and I also cleaned in a school. Then I got a job in a bistro and ended up running that as well.”
Soon she found herself walking up to 20 miles a day between jobs. Coupled with her exercise regime – she would often cycle for miles – the weight began to drop away.
“Sometimes I’d walk from my home to Southport and back on a Sunday just for the hell of it and I could spend hours on the cross trainer in the gym, too.
“I knew there was a problem but I’d look at myself in the mirror and still see myself as fat.”
She began to suffer kidney problems. Pale skinned anyway she developed dark rings beneath her eyes and her hair started to fall out. Anorexia had her in its grip.
“I lived alone although my parents were nearby and of course they noticed my changed appearance, as did my friends and colleagues. I became known as ‘the girl who spent hours in the gym’.
“But the more people commented on my appearance the more I’d think ‘I don’t care what they think’ and carry on.”
Distraught, her mum tried to force her to eat but to no avail. Her GP also referred to Fazakerley Hospital but Sophie was unwilling to take it further.
“I hated the idea of people touching me and I’d wear baggy clothes all the time to disguise my body shape. I remember weighing myself and I was six stones 1lb but I’m sure I lost more weight after that.
Now, after discovering Zumba Sophie, who at her lowest weighed less than six stones, has turned her life around.
“It’s true. Zumba really has helped save my life,” she smiles.
“I realised that to run a successful business, to get the most out of every day and to realise my dreams, I couldn’t afford to be ill. I had to buck my ideas up and that meant starting to eat again.
“Now I run 12 Zumba classes and have big plans for the future.”
Sophie, who is now 20 and lives in Scarisbrick, says that as a young teenager she regularly helped out at local beauty pageants.
“I never took part but I’d help the photographer and hand out the prizes and I think a lot of my issues stem from that time.
“I was probably a size eight or so but I knew I’d never look like one of those pageant models; they were so glamorous and thin and I just didn’t see myself like that.”
As she grew a little older her weight fluctuated slightly but, she says, it was never a problem and although she wasn’t sporty at school she enjoyed keeping fit at the gym.
“But I was exercising on my own. I’d be in there for ages and wouldn’t see or have to speak to anyone. It wasn’t a very social way to stay fit.”
Having left school at 16 and determined to build up her savings she found herself holding down three jobs.
“I worked in a pub and I also cleaned in a school. Then I got a job in a bistro and ended up running that as well.”
Soon she found herself walking up to 20 miles a day between jobs. Coupled with her exercise regime – she would often cycle for miles – the weight began to drop away.
“Sometimes I’d walk from my home to Southport and back on a Sunday just for the hell of it and I could spend hours on the cross trainer in the gym, too.
“I knew there was a problem but I’d look at myself in the mirror and still see myself as fat.”
She began to suffer kidney problems. Pale skinned anyway she developed dark rings beneath her eyes and her hair started to fall out. Anorexia had her in its grip.
“I lived alone although my parents were nearby and of course they noticed my changed appearance, as did my friends and colleagues. I became known as ‘the girl who spent hours in the gym’.
“But the more people commented on my appearance the more I’d think ‘I don’t care what they think’ and carry on.”
Distraught, her mum tried to force her to eat but to no avail. Her GP also referred to Fazakerley Hospital but Sophie was unwilling to take it further.
“I hated the idea of people touching me and I’d wear baggy clothes all the time to disguise my body shape. I remember weighing myself and I was six stones 1lb but I’m sure I lost more weight after that.
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